One of the most cynical things Alaska legislators ever did (and that’s saying something) was voting to gut the 2002 minimum wage increase less than one year after passing it.
After trying to supplant a voter initiative approved for the 2002 election with weaker measures, Republican majorities finally took the advice of their own attorneys — that they could only moot the initiative with a bill virtually identical to the ballot measure — and passed such a bill, which included an annual cost of living adjustment and a provision requiring that the Alaska minimum wage would always be at least one dollar over the federal. Then-Speaker Pete Kott told the Daily News when the bill passed that it was preferable to letting the initiative pass since legislators wouldn’t have to wait two years to change it. Less than a year later, they deleted the COLA and dollar-over-federal provisions.
In 2014, an initiative to raise the state minimum wage to what it would have been had the 2002 law remained intact, and restore the COLA and dollar-over-federal provisions, was approved. Then-Speaker Mike Chenault, who had voted for both the 2002 law and the 2003 bill gutting it, tried to pull off the same cynical maneuver. Chenault’s bill passed by one vote in the House, but Senate Republicans, to their credit, refused to play along and the initiative passed with a 70% vote.
Now, Reps. Justin Ruffridge and Julie Coulombe have reached into the old bag of tricks to try and gut the recently passed Ballot Measure 1 — approved with a 58% vote in November — before it even takes effect on July 1. Their HB 161 would exempt employers of less than 50 employees, and all seasonal employers, from the paid sick leave provisions of Ballot Measure 1.
Under Alaska law, the legislature can not repeal an initiative until two years after it’s adoption. An initiative can be amended prior to two years, but the Alaska Supreme Court found in 1977 in Warren v. Thomas that the Legislature would exceed its power to amend “by passing an amendment which so vitiates the initiative as to constitute its repeal.” According to the Research and Analysis Section of the Alaska Department of Labor, 96% of Alaska’s private sector employers — the only employers subject to Ballot Measure 1 — employ fewer than 50 workers, and 43% of all private sector workers in the state are employed by these employers. The broad exemption for seasonal employers, regardless of size, would only increase the vitiating effect of HB 161 on the initiative and the clear intent expressed by the voters in passing it overwhelmingly.
Ballot Measure 1 was supported by a coalition of over 130 Alaska small businesses, employers who recognized the importance of providing a modest amount of paid sick leave to workers, for their well-being and productivity — and for the economic and physical health of our communities. No parent should have to decide between going to work or caring for a sick child. Nor should they be forced to choose between losing a day’s pay or going to work sick and spreading illness to co-workers or customers.
Seventeen states have paid sick leave laws, and none of the hysterical predictions of negative effects on their businesses or employment have come to pass. Alaska used to be a leader in providing meaningful worker rights and protection. Let’s at least be a follower now and afford our workers the same basic benefits enjoyed by millions of Americans in other states.
We should protect our ability to enact needed legislation through initiatives, where the people themselves act as the legislature. Our elected legislators should respect that process, but all too often, as in the case of HB 161, they do not. We need to let them know that we didn’t elect them to thwart the will of the people, and that HB 161 is tantamount to a repeal of Ballot Measure 1 and should not pass.
Ed Flanagan was commissioner of Labor from 1999 to 2002 under Gov. Tony Knowles, as well as chair of Alaskans for a Fair Minimum Wage in 2014 and Chair of Yes on 1 for Better Jobs in 2024.
