by Luzmila Freese

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Barely two months ago, Seattle gig workers began earning minimum wage for the first time. Here at the Latino Community Fund (LCF), we are led by and serve Latino and immigrant community members who share a vision of a brighter, stronger economic future for us all that includes living wages for us all. We know a truly healthy economy is one in which Seattle’s local businesses and workforce have the support they need. That’s why we support efforts to make Seattle a great, affordable place to work, and requiring that app corporations pay workers fairly is an essential step toward that vision.

At LCF we partner closely with Latino-owned businesses, the many Latino and Hispanic workers they employ, and our wider Latino community to build a strong, sustainable local economy that benefits every one of us. Business owners understand that they need customers to grow, and that the more money workers earn, the more they can spend.

We know firsthand how much support small businesses need because we work with them every day. COVID-19 forced many to pivot their business models in order to survive, and owners came to us looking for training on things like how to accept online orders and use card readers. They were optimistic that apps like DoorDash and UberEats would help them grow and connect to new customers. But what they also found is that the app corporations increase the cost of doing business, and that small businesses often feel like they have no choice but to use them. The corporations put small businesses in a position of getting on board with their obscure policies, their fees, their app interfaces — or getting run over. And they treat gig workers similarly.

Instead of using their much-lauded innovative technology to pay tens of thousands of workers in our city a minimum wage, the app corporations have massively raised fees — gouging customers, workers, and small businesses alike. Instead of good-faith efforts at building a balanced economy for employers and workers, the app companies have been hard at work causing frustration and confusion for all of us who use the apps. This response to the new minimum wage law shows that they are not concerned with supporting Seattle’s small businesses. If the app corporations truly cared about the Seattle economy, they would eliminate excessive fees and stop fighting the common sense, time-tested policy the rest of us already support: minimum wage for workers.

The small businesses we work with care about being good employers and paying workers a living wage. The app companies that are doing everything they can to avoid paying workers fairly, even while they offer billion-dollar stock buybacks and pay their CEOs million-dollar end-of-year bonuses, clearly do not. Rather than sending Seattleites’ money to a handful of Silicon Valley CEOs, we should be keeping money here in our local economy. Raising gig worker pay means more money we can keep here at home in the pockets of workers who themselves are customers of our businesses and whose purchasing power is the backbone of our economy.

Small Latino-owned businesses have needs that the City can help with, like long-term recovery from the impact of the pandemic, expanding operations infrastructure to scale, and training to integrate new technology and tools like digital marketing to reach new customers. We welcome additional support to ensure that our local economy can grow and thrive long-term, which depends on workers being paid fairly. Local businesses need to be surrounded by a local community who can afford what they sell. Raising wages will accomplish that. Letting a few big corporations have their way will not.

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As director of Community Programs for Latino Community Fund, Luzmila Freese has been leading efforts to implement sustainable solutions that address deeply rooted problems affecting small Latino businesses located in underserved and hard-to-reach areas.

📸 Featured Image: Local gig workers delivered 400 to-go bags outside Seattle City Hall on Feb. 16, 2022, to draw attention to the wages they currently receive from app companies, including Uber, DoorDash, and Instacart. (Photo: Alex Garland)

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