Thursday, October 1, 2026
If good intentions were enough to make good policy, Proposition 1 might be worth supporting. But Olympia’s “Workers’ Bill of Rights” trades feel-good rhetoric for real-world harm — leaving small businesses and workers to pay the price.
Proposition 1 proves Friedman's point. It was written with emotion, not with a clear understanding of how businesses, employees, and city budgets actually operate.
At its core, the initiative assumes government can manage the marketplace better than the people who work in it every day. It can’t. Markets aren’t flawless, but they remain the most efficient way to balance wages, prices, and demand. When government tries to overcorrect, the outcome is predictable: higher costs, fewer jobs, and fewer opportunities for the very people it claims to help.
Across the country, cities that have adopted similar scheduling mandates have faced higher costs, compliance headaches, and unintended impacts on workers’ hours and flexibility. Olympia’s Proposition 1 risks repeating those mistakes — leaving local businesses and working families to absorb the fallout.
Here’s what the measure actually requires.
Employers must post work schedules 14 days in advance. On paper, that sounds fair. But anyone who’s managed a business or worked in a service job knows life doesn’t follow a two-week timetable. Employees get sick, parents trade shifts, customers cancel, and emergencies happen. Proposition 1 punishes employers simply for adjusting to reality.
It also adds an “unfair scheduling payment” that forces businesses to pay a premium wage when an employee volunteers for a shift that wasn’t planned two weeks earlier. Picture this: a worker says, “Sure, I’ll cover that shift,” and the employer has to pay extra just because the change didn’t meet a calendar rule. That doesn’t protect workers — it punishes flexibility.
The initiative goes even further. It mandates premium pay for shifts less than 10 hours apart and imposes a hiring freeze until every current worker has been offered more hours. Then it demands city enforcement, putting Olympia taxpayers on the hook for an entirely new layer of government oversight. Large corporations might hire attorneys to navigate these rules.
Small, local employers can’t. Neighborhood cafés, family-run stores, and home care agencies would face the steepest climb. One local caregiving provider explained that because their company operates under a franchise model, the city would classify them as a “large employer.”
That label would impose the same costly requirements on a small business serving local seniors. Imagine managing in-home care when a client’s needs change daily — or when a client passes away and schedules must shift overnight. Under Proposition 1, every adjustment could trigger a financial penalty. Those costs will either land on the client or force the agency to cut staff hours. Either way, Olympia families lose.
The proposal also overlooks Olympia’s financial reality. The city already struggles to fund public safety, maintain roads, and address homelessness. Proposition 1 piles on another unfunded mandate — requiring new staff, new systems, and new spending our city can’t afford.
Proposition 1 is so problematic that it’s done the impossible — it has united Democrats and Republicans. After hours of debate and public comment, Olympia’s City Council, made up mostly of Democrats and progressives, voted 4–3 to oppose it. When both sides of the aisle start waving the same red flag, voters should take notice.
Mayor Dontae Payne warned that the initiative “fails to consider the complexities of running a business or a nonprofit organization.” Council member Kelly Green called it “complicated, confusing, and incomplete.” Even Council member Dani Madrone, who supports raising wages in principle, said the measure’s flaws outweighed its intentions.
Olympia’s economy works best when people work together — not when government hovers over every paycheck with a clipboard and rulebook, micromanaging common sense.
In the end, Proposition 1 doesn’t lift people up — it ties them down. It hands more power to bureaucracy while yanking flexibility away from both workers and employers. And the irony? It hurts the very people it claims to protect: working families, small business owners, and seniors who depend on affordable local care.
And what Proposition 1 does is raise prices, shrink paychecks, and send opportunity packing.
On Nov. 4, vote "no" on Proposition 1 — for workers, for small businesses, and for Olympia’s future.
Corey Gauny is a resident of Olympia and chair of the Thurston County Republican Party.
The opinions expressed above are those of the writers and not necessarily those of The JOLT's staff or board of directors. Got something to say about a topic of interest to Thurston County residents? Send it to us and we’ll most likely publish it. Click here to email to us.
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hptrillium
There has got to be a better way to increase the minimum wage and get shifts scheduled well in advance. Prop. 1 is not well thought out. I would like to see the city council continue to research this and make a better plan.
Vote NO on Prop. 1
Saturday, November 1, 2025 Report this
BobJacobs
The comment about uniting democrats and republicans is significant. This is what voters have asked for. And it indicates that after this initiative is voted down people of all political persuasions will be able to work together to address the issues through the normal process of analysis, public hearings, etc. That process will include the type of information that voters need in order to cast an informed vote, unlike this initiative.
Bob Jacobs
Saturday, November 1, 2025 Report this
Localhorizon
For those of us ready to vote, it’d be very helpful to provide citations, aside from Friedman.
Which cities, which studies?
Monday, November 3, 2025 Report this
DudeInOlympia
“Employers must post work schedules 14 days in advance,” - you didn’t mention that this applies to Large employers and almost all medium and small businesses are exempt. The nursing home issue with shift changing in the middle of the night? “The city would be authorized, but not required, to enforce the measure and would set its own rules for compliance.” I’m pretty sure, even though this specific circumstance isn’t specifically written out hyper specifically right now, specifically, that the penalty for changing a shift around for a client dying would probably be $0, ridiculous.
“And what Proposition 1 does is raise prices” - that is crap, wages are part of the whole picture. Corporate greed with price gouging, supply chain issues with world trade currently, and Trump's issues with flippant tariffs collectively and objectively make up way more of the pie with raising prices.
As chair of the Thurston County Republican Party, I’m going to make an educated guess that you do not make $17.13/hour. You may have made minimum wage at some point in your life, but it is hard as hell for people out here in 2025 as the VAST majority of all workers are not teenagers. They are adults, many who are raising families.
Vote yes on Prop 1, give dignity to workers making minimum wage and working around the whim of a bad manager's scheduling skills, and understand that the Olympia Workers’ Bill of Rights is not a hard-stop red line set of rules. Olympia will have the option to design enforcement how it best works for the city.
End of rant, hand shake to Corey even though we completely disagree, good luck at the ballot box. Vote prop 1.
Monday, November 3, 2025 Report this
Quadlok
Aww, I must have hurt some feelings. My comment is gone.
Remember folks. There is no war but class war and the people telling you Prop 1 is bad are on the wrong side.
Monday, November 3, 2025 Report this