Accord­ing to the press release for a class-action law­suit also announced Wednes­day, an esti­mat­ed 40 cur­rent and for­mer Extra Car work­ers earn or earned between $10 and $11 an hour — or at least $4 less than required by law. Attor­ney Mar­tin Garfinkel — who rep­re­sents fired Extra Car work­er Lou Lehman and may soon be rep­re­sent­ing oth­er for­mer and cur­rent Extra Car employ­ees who have been invit­ed to join the suit — said in a Wednes­day press release that ​“the SeaT­ac liv­ing wage ordi­nance is in full force and effect out­side the bound­aries of the Air­port, and must be followed….There is no excuse for Extra Car’s unlaw­ful conduct.”

On Wednes­day morn­ing, four recent­ly-ter­mi­nat­ed employ­ees of Extra Car Air­port Park­ing, a park­ing ser­vice that serves the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Air­port in SeaT­ac, ral­lied in front of their for­mer work­place. The work­ers were joined by a group of about 30 sup­port­ers, draw­ing atten­tion to the company’s alleged wrong­do­ings, which include shirk­ing the new $15 wage floor and engag­ing in retal­ia­to­ry fir­ings against work­ers who have voiced complaints.

Ear­ly this year, the city of SeaT­ac, Wash­ing­ton inau­gu­rat­ed the high­est min­i­mum wage in the coun­try: $15 an hour. The law already suf­fered a set­back when a judge ruled that air­port employ­ees — who make up the major­i­ty of the city’s work­force — would not be eli­gi­ble for the high­er wage. Yet among the SeaT­ac work­ers who do qual­i­fy for a raise, a num­ber have had to take the enforce­ment of the new stan­dards into their own hands.

The suit is the first to be brought by the city’s work­ers against an employ­er in an attempt to enforce the city’s months-old min­i­mum wage ordi­nance, accord­ing to Heather Wein­er, a spokesper­son for the advo­ca­cy group Yes! for SeaT­ac. Fund­ed by SEIU and the Team­sters, Yes! for SeaT­ac was a key play­er in the cam­paign for Propo­si­tion 1, the ref­er­en­dum that made head­lines across the coun­try in the city’s Novem­ber elec­tions when it ush­ered in the nation’s high­est munic­i­pal min­i­mum wage.

But the pas­sage of Prop 1 was not with­out com­pli­ca­tions. Weeks after vot­ers approved the ordi­nance, a supe­ri­or court judge ruled that SeaTac’s largest employ­er — the Seat­tle-Taco­ma Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, which employs three-quar­ters of the town’s work­force that would in the­o­ry have been cov­ered be the new law — would be exempt from the new wage floor. Periph­er­al employ­ers, how­ev­er, still have to com­ply, includ­ing all hotels with at least 100 rooms and 30 non-man­age­r­i­al employ­ees, as well as all park­ing lots with at least 100 spaces and 25 non-man­age­r­i­al employees.

The Seat­tle Times reports that the law has a gray area: ​“A com­plete list of employ­ers that must com­ply is elu­sive: The city of SeaT­ac pro­vides no such list.” Yet, accord­ing to Wein­er, Extra Car fits square­ly in the cat­e­go­ry of affect­ed park­ing lots. If there is an argu­ment against the lot being required to pay $15 an hour, Wein­er says she’s at a loss for what that argu­ment could be. ​“One of the [Extra Car] employ­ees told me today that they have over 1,000 spaces. And they have about 40 employees.”

The press release for the law­suit did not men­tion retal­ia­to­ry fir­ings, but one demand of Wednesday’s ral­ly was for the rein­state­ment of all work­ers alleged­ly fired for orga­niz­ing in the work­place ear­li­er in the month. In the first week of March, 13 work­ers filed a com­plaint with the city against Extra Car, ask­ing the city to inves­ti­gate the company’s non­com­pli­ance with min­i­mum wage law. SeaT­ac City Man­ag­er Todd Cutts informed local media that he sent a let­ter to the head of Extra Car telling him to com­ply, but work­ers say the sit­u­a­tion has only changed for the worse. Of the orig­i­nal group that signed the com­plaint, the work­ers say, five have been fired so far.

Wayne Arm­strong, 84, says he lost a customer’s key while park­ing their car in ear­ly March, cost­ing Extra Car over $200. But Arm­strong says he had not been rep­ri­mand­ed for the inci­dent until a man­ag­er pulled him into his office last Fri­day to tell him he was being ter­mi­nat­ed, cit­ing the loss of the key. ​“That was the rea­son they used to fire me,” Arm­strong alleges. ​“But actu­al­ly the real rea­son is because I signed the petition.”

Accord­ing to Arm­strong, when his friend and co-work­er Dan Park decid­ed to com­plain to man­age­ment over what Park viewed as Armstrong’s unwar­rant­ed fir­ing, he was in turn fired on the spot. ​“I wouldn’t go back for $20 an hour,” says Arm­strong, ​“because of the type of peo­ple they are.”

In the same press release, attor­ney Garfin­kle adds that ​“Extra Car is not only being unjust to its own employ­ees; it also is unfair­ly com­pet­ing with oth­er park­ing lot com­pa­nies that are fol­low­ing the law and pay­ing their work­ers $15 an hour.”

Yet sup­press­ing labor costs may not turn out to be the best PR deci­sion for Extra Car. In plain view of Wednesday’s demon­stra­tors, com­peti­tor Mas­ter Park­ing dis­played a large ban­ner that read, ​“Accept­ing Appli­ca­tions: $15 per hr.”

​“I thought that was great,” says Arm­strong about the ban­ner. ​“Why any­body would want to work at Extra Car is beyond me.”

Extra Car could not be reached for com­ment, but City Man­ag­er Cutts told The Seat­tle Times that Extra Car’s ​“belief is that the ordi­nance does not apply to them,” and that ​“we’re hav­ing a dia­logue with them about whether or not that’s the case.” Cutts added that the com­pa­ny is the first employ­er to be accused of vio­lat­ing the new min­i­mum wage ordinance.

Work­ers are still wait­ing for fur­ther action from the city in response to the com­plaint they filed against Extra Car ear­li­er this month. In the mean­time, Lehman and her lawyers are invit­ing oth­er cur­rent and for­mer employ­ees of the com­pa­ny to join the law­suit, which could recu­per­ate lost wages and has the poten­tial to pres­sure Extra Car into com­pli­ance with the min­i­mum wage law.