Maine restaurant workers successfully lobby to lower the minimum wage
Published June 29, 2017
http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/20...imum-wage.html
Last November, the Maine State Legislature voted to raise the minimum wage for restaurant servers. Then in mid-June, they voted to lower it back down.
And lots of Maine's restaurant workers were thrilled.
The minimum wage for tipped workers in Maine is half that of the state's regular minimum wage ($9). It's called the "tip credit" rule, as it allows employers to take a credit of up to 50 percent from their employees' wages, because servers will generally make that money back (and hopefully more) in tips. If tips and wages, together, don't equal the state's minimum wage, employers are required to make up the difference.
But, at November's referendum, the Maine House voted to raise the minimum wage by $1 each year (through 2024) and to remove the tip credit rule entirely, meaning that all employees — tipped or not — would be earning the state's minimum wage, reports the Portland Press Herald.
That's when something unexpected happened.
State Senator James Dill, a Democrat who initially voted to raise wages, told the Washington Post that after the Nov. referendum passed, he received "hundreds" of calls and emails from servers who were worried about their livelihood. ...
...As the Washington Post reports, servers were worried about the ramifications of the new laws for two reasons: first, that it would force employers to raise prices on their menu items, which could affect their current tips; and second, and perhaps more importantly, that employers might be forced to cut servers' shifts as a result.
"I don't need to be 'saved,' and I'll be damned if small groups of uninformed people are voting on my livelihood," said Sue Vallenza, a Maine bartender who spoke to the Post. Vallenza further said she's already seeing less in tips as a result of customers who believe the wage hike had already went into effect.
As the Post notes, labor activists are bracing themselves for similar outcries in Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., but critics say that Maine's servers don't speak for the country's restaurant workers. ...
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