Mayor Durkan vetoes bill ending hazard pay for grocery workers

SEATTLE — Mayor Jenny Durkan has announced that she will veto a city council bill which ends hazard pay for frontline workers in Seattle.

The Seattle city council approved legislation in January that provides hazard pay of an extra $4 per hour to grocery store workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, the city council voted unanimously to repeal the hazard pay requirement.

“Now is not the time to roll back the pay for these critical front-line workers,” said Mayor Durkan. “This summer, I asked Council to not lift hazard pay for grocery workers as Delta was emerging, and now as Omicron is newly emerging, one of my last actions as Mayor will be to protect this critical pay for our frontline workers.”

Durkan says her decision was influenced by the surge in cases of COVID-19 fueled by the omicron variant.

According to a news release from the mayor’s office, there has been an 143% increase in COVID-19 cases just over the past week.

Durkan said she will formally submit her veto on Monday, Dec. 27.

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