Hospitality coalition opposes wording of minimum wage measure
A coalition including the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, the Maine Restaurant Association and the Maine Innkeepers Association said the language of a statewide ballot measure to raise Maine’s minimum wage fails to meet the standard of presenting the issue “concisely and intelligibly” to the voters.
Currently, the language in Maine’s Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap’s draft of the measure reads: “Do you want to raise the minimum hourly wage of $7.50 to $9.00 in 2017, and in $1.00 increments up to $12.00 in 2020; and to raise it for service workers who receive tips from the current rate of $3.75 to $5.00 in 2017, in $1.00 increments up to $12.00 in 2024?”
But the coalition said the wording doesn’t include key points like the inclusion of indexing the minimum wage after 2020, and the use of the phrase “tip credit,” or noting that the “tip credit” will be totally eliminated, when describing the full impact of the question to voters.
In submitted comments to the Secretary of State’s office, the coalition suggested the following wording be used for the question: “For non-tipped employees, do you want to raise the minimum wage of $7.50 to $9.00 in 2017, and in $1.00 increments up to $12.00 an hour in 2020, and raise it thereby annually based on increases to the consumer price index, and do you want to eliminate the tip credit for service workers who receive tips, and increase their minimum wage so that the minimum wage for service workers increases to $12.00 an hour by 2024?”
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