OLYMPIA, WA – Olympia’s Proposition 1 to raise the city’s minimum wage to $20 an hour and provide some new worker protections was rejected by voters in last week’s general election.

As reported by The Center Square, the measure aimed to establish a Workers’ Bill of Rights, which would have included provisions for predictive scheduling and different wage tiers based on business size.

As of Wednesday, vote totals reported by the Office of the Secretary of State showed that Prop. 1 was failing by 893 votes. With only 390 outstanding votes to be added countywide, the measure has failed.

Prop. 1 supporters were backed by labor groups, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367, a grocery store union, which argued that raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour would help workers meet the region’s high cost of living.

Opponents expressed concern about the economic impact on small businesses and nonprofits.

The grassroots group Olympia Together organized the opposition campaign in the final weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election.

On Thursday morning, group members gathered to debrief on their successful campaign, which included speaking with The Center Square.

“When I first looked at this, I knew it was bad for my community,” said Steve Hall, a former 13-year city manager who retired in 2020. “Since retiring, I’m on the board of several nonprofits, including the Thurston County Food Bank and the YMCA.”

Hall said Prop. 1 included no safeguards for nonprofits and was “poorly written.”

“It would mean it would raise childcare costs at the YMCA, and it would increase the cost for swim lessons, and would increase our youth camps. It would take food right off the shelf of the food bank,” he explained. “If you asked me as city manager to implement, I could not do it. It’s just set up for failure, because it’s so poorly drafted.”

Group members expressed gratitude for Amalie O’Connor, co-chair of Olympia Together, crediting her for much of the organization’s success.

O’Connor thanked fellow members for their compliment, but said it was a group effort.

“We were working tirelessly. You know, we didn’t have a lot of money, we didn’t have a huge group. I mean, this was really an underdog effort,” she said.

Former Olympia Mayor Cheryl Selby joined the Olympia Together movement as co-chair and said the grassroots effort that successfully defeated the ballot measure is something to be replicated.

“That’s kind of what we’re doing this morning is we’re doing a whiteboard exercise to define exactly how we did it. Because we were just kind of flying by the seat of our pants,” she said. “Going up against almost a quarter-million dollars’ worth of union money that came in to pay signature gatherers and pay for a ground game, which, typically in Olympia, if you can win the ground game, you can win the campaign. So the odds were so stacked against us.”

Meanwhile, voters in Tacoma are still waiting to find out if a similar workers’ rights measure will be on the ballot in February 2026.

Tacoma’s Measure No. 2 would increase the minimum wage to $20 per hour and offer guaranteed scheduling to workers. It is backed by Tacoma Democratic Socialists, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Backers initially hoped to put the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, but legal challenges prevented that.

Last week, the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division Two, put a temporary halt to proceedings by issuing a stay, which pauses the Pierce County Superior Court’s decision to place the initiative on the February 2026 ballot while it undergoes further review.

Pierce County Auditor Linda Farmer has publicly affirmed her office’s commitment to compliance.

The Center Square reached out to the Office of the Pierce County Auditor for comment on the measure and the likelihood the court will make a decision in time for the proposal to appear on the Feb. 2026 ballot.

“We are unable to speculate on the duration of the court process. Pierce County has provided the court with information about our printing deadlines for the February election, which fall shortly after the deadline to file a measure (December 12),” Kyle Haugh, elections manager at the Pierce County Auditor’s Office, said in an email.