(Image: Uber Eats)
You might think Kshama Sawant was mayor the way Seattle political leaders are celebrating the city’s largest settlement ever for its Office of Labor Standards this week.
Sawant is running — for congress.
Mayor Bruce Harrell, in a race against a surprising effective progressive challenger, is running to keep his seat.
“This historic $15 million settlement is a major win for workers and a strong reminder that in Seattle, we hold large companies accountable when they sidestep their responsibilities and shortchange workers,” Mayor Harrell said in the city’s announcement of a $15 million settlement with delivery giant Uber Eats over back pay, interest, liquidated damages and civil penalties) to 16,120 affected workers. The agreement includes $33,680.26 in fines to the City of Seattle.
Payment is scheduled to reach workers by Labor Day, the city says.
The bulk of Uber’s agreement comes over alleged violations of the city’s new laws around independent contractors that require hiring companies to include information about “how much a job pays, including how earnings are calculated, before work begins and at the time of payment.” Uber’s payroll system didn’t adequately do that, the city says.
A smaller $1.5 million component was related to minimum wage requirements for app-based delivery workers set in 2022. The city says it received complaints from workers who said they were “not paid or were underpaid for jobs that were cancelled for cause,” a violation of the ordinance.
Uber Eats denied the violations but agreed to settle the cases and add new policies to meet Seattle’s requirements.
Only last year, city leaders including Harrell ally Sara Nelson were pushing to roll back some of these worker protections.
In the fall of 2025, Seattle City Council president Nelson and Harrell are in the fights of their political lives against progressive challengers who swung from underdogs to election favorites in the August primary.
“We are proud of our nation-leading policies that protect and uplift app-based workers, recognizing that they are a critical part of our local economy and deserve to be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect,” Harrell said Monday.
The General Election takes place November 4th.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support 👍
