Published for Public Consumption. Not an endorsement.
I will however say 2 things regarding this:
I will however say 2 things regarding this:
- That a business does not have to pay a worker minimum wage because they may make up the difference from the generosity of strangers is an absolute farse.
- Conversely, it is also an absolute farce that when travelling, or just out for dinner, that you have to tip just about any worker who crosses your path as a part of them doing their normal job. Pay people a fair wage for doing a job and then make them stop pandering from the public in furtherance of them doing what they're already being paid to do. I'm mainly thinking about the large percentage of other people who do their job everyday without soliciting donations from their company's customers.
Tipped Workers from Across Maryland Call for Inclusion in Senate Version of Minimum Wage Bill |
Workers, advocates urge Senate to eliminate sub-minimum wage for tipped workers |
Annapolis, MD - At a press conference today, tipped workers and advocates urged the Maryland Senate to include tipped workers who currently earn a sub-minimum wage in the $15 minimum wage bill pending before the Senate Finance Committee. Describing personal hardships of working in service industries where wage theft and harassment are prevalent, the workers spoke of the basic unfairness of legislators leaving behind thousands of workers who earn just $3.63 per hour. "While we're pleased that we've passed the $15 bill in the House of Delegates, that version still cuts out too many workers who also need a raise," said Ricarra Jones of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and a leader of the Fight for $15 coalition. "Of all workers who earn the minimum wage, tipped workers are most likely to be living in poverty and relying on social services to survive. Carving categories of workers out of a raise is unjust, cruel, and contrary to the core goal of creating better wages and fairer workplaces." Last week, the Maryland House of Delegates passed an amended bill (HB 166) to gradually raise the state minimum wage from the current rate of $10.10 per hour to $15 by 2025. The bill (SB 280) has been heard by the Senate Finance Committee and is awaiting a vote there before moving to the full Senate for consideration. Maryland tipped workers earned half of the minimum wage until the passage of the 2014 bill that raised the state's basement wage from $7.25 to the current $10.10. Intense lobbying by the Maryland Restaurant Association resulted in tipped workers not only being left out of the bill, but having their wages permanently frozen at $3.63 per hour. "It is incredibly difficult for tipped staff to bother employers for compensation when we don't make tips. We look like ungrateful and difficult employees who are not team-players, and in most businesses the record-keeping for hourly and tipped income is unreliable," said Drew Koshgarian, a member of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. "It is deeply unrealistic to ask employees to jeopardize our relationships with our employers by pursuing our daily compensation when we are not tipped. Raising the minimum wage to $15 for tipped employees would protect us in the most basic way from a wildly unreliable and illogical model for compensating our time and hard work." Employers are supposed to ensure that tipped workers make the full state (or local prevailing) minimum wage but many do not and wage theft (or nonpayment) is rife in the service industries. According to the US Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, almost "84 percent of full-service restaurants it investigated between 2010 and 2012 had violated labor standards." And workers who request their full legal salary can find themselves getting fewer and less profitable shifts, or left off work schedules altogether. "In the state of Maryland, there are almost 90,000 tipped restaurant workers with a median wage of $9.46, including tips," said Diana Ramirez, Policy Advocate for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. "Today, 65 percent of tipped workers in Maryland are women, and half of them are single mothers. They suffer from almost three times the poverty rate of the rest of the Maryland workforce and use food stamps at almost two times the rate of other Maryland workers. Worst off all, the restaurant industry has the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry because it forces a mostly female workforce to tolerate inappropriate customer behavior to feed their families in tips." Other amendments made in the House version of the bill include extending the phase-in to 2025, taking out a provision to index the basement wage to the Consumer Price Index so that it doesn't lose value over time, carving out agricultural workers, and giving Maryland's Board of Public Works -- now controlled by Governor Larry Hogan and Comptroller Peter Franchot -- a so-called off-ramp, a one-time opportunity to stop or delay the scheduled wage increases for one year. Each of these amendments weakens the bill, lessening the value of the raise. Advocates will continue to encourage senators to support a "Clean $15" bill without these amendments or any other changes to the original measure. "In the 2018 elections, legislators campaigned on passing a $15 minimum wage. People didn't vote for them to pass a gutted version of the bill," said Larry Stafford, executive director of Progressive Maryland. "Legislators need to listen to their constituents, not the National Federation of Independent Business, the Maryland Restaurant Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and other big business lobbyists." California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Illinois have all adopted plans to reach $15 without creating new exemptions for any group of workers or preempting local wages. Workers in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California will earn $15 before 2024. A majority of New Yorkers will be eligible for $15 by 2021. More testimony from tipped workers: "In my profession, I interact with many types of guests from all over the country and all over the world," said Debbie Wright, a bartender at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore. "I am always uncertain as to whether or not they are going to leave a decent tip or even tip at all. In many cases, I have to rely on my hourly wage to be able to make ends meet while caring for my elderly uncle and my four school-age children. In my industry, no one is required to leave a tip. I find it appalling that the minimum wage for tipped employees has been frozen since 2009!" "Most customers don't know that their server is sharing the tip with the busser, the hostess, the bartender, and in some cases the kitchen staff," said Justin Holiday, a server at Dempsey's Brew Pub & Restaurant at Camden Yards in Baltimore. "We have to pay taxes on the tips, we have to pay the legally required state and federal deductions. A lot of servers have a 'zero' sum paycheck or even owe money on payday. Tipped workers need a raise too. It would be good for our local economy if tipped workers got a higher hourly wage. We will go out and spend the money at local businesses." "It's frustrating to have an income that is dependent on outside factors such as holidays and the weather; it's an unreliable source of income," said Alexa Johnson, a server at a family-owned Baltimore restaurant. "At my restaurant, the servers pool our tips. We are then responsible for state and federal taxes. I don't have enough money from my hourly pay to cover the taxes. My co-workers and I all end up in a bad tax situation. I'm still trying to pay what I owe for 2017 taxes. I support myself while going to school. I need to work. Tipped workers should not be excluded from having a reliable income" "If I got paid more, I'd pay off my bills and buy some things that my baby needs," said Audrey Broden, a beverage server at the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore. "I have a four-month old daughter. I wish I could have taken more time off work after she was born but I couldn't afford it. In addition to my server job, I'm on staff at Powell Recovery Home. A lot of my friends are servers too. We have to use public assistance because we don't earn enough to take care of ourselves and our families." ### Maryland Fight for $15 coalition members include representatives from more than 200 faith, labor and community organizations and small businesses all working to make life better for workers and their families. Participating organizations include 1199SEIU, American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Businesses for a Fair Minimum Wage, CASA, Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF), Jews United for Justice, Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), Maryland Working Families, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Progressive Maryland, Public Justice Center, United Food Commercial Workers (UFCW), Women's Law Center of Maryland, and many others. |
