Lawmakers caught in crossfire over changing minimum wage
Courtesy / 401(K) 2012, Flickr
Representatives of Maine's restaurant industry say they want changes to the tip credit provision of Maine's new minimum wage law. Those changes are among proposals debated at Wednesday's public hearing at the State House in Augusta.
Lawmakers reviewing 10 bills seeking to change the statewide minimum wage increase approved by voters in November’s referendum faced strong lobbying from both sides of the issue at Wednesday’s daylong hearing in Augusta.
The Bangor Daily News reported that up to 200 people attended Wednesday’s public hearing. Many of them, the newspaper reported, were restaurant servers with ties to either the industry-affiliated Restaurant Workers of Maine and those aligned with the progressive Maine People’s Alliance who spoke at the morning session devoted to three bills related to the “tip credit” that's being gradually phased out by November’s vote.
Two bills, LD 673 and LD 702 — both supported by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce — seek to restore the tip credit back into Maine law. The third bill, LD 1117, seeks to study the phase-out of the tip credit and have a commission report its recommendations to the full Legislature in 2019. The chamber opposes that bill.
The BDN reported that sharply different perspectives were given at the hearing, with some saying customers are tipping less, resulting in servers making less money since the law took effect, while others saying tipping practices haven’t changed and asserting that the higher minimum wage has benefited servers.
Under the new minimum wage guidelines that took effect in January, the state’s regular hourly minimum wage went from $7.50 to $9, which will be followed by a $1 rise per year until it reaches $12 in 2020. After that, the minimum wage will be adjusted in regards to the consumer price index. The tipped minimum rose from $3.75 to $5 and will reach the regular rate by 2024.
The afternoon public hearing focused on seven bills that seek in various ways to alter the new minimum wage law. Proposals range from creating a training wage and establishing a separate minimum wage for minors to a prohibition preventing Maine’s minimum wage from exceeding the New England average.
Two Democrats plan to stand firm
Two Democratic lawmakers issued statements after the hearing indicating they opposed any efforts to change the state’s new minimum wage law.
Sen. Shenna Bellows, D-Manchester, the lead Senate Democrat on the Joint Standing Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development committee, issued this written statement:
“The will of the voters was clear in November when they approved Question 4, raising the minimum wage for all workers and eliminating an unfair sub-minimum wage for servers. In today’s public hearing, Mainers from across the state turned out to support the basic principle that no one who works full time deserves to live in poverty. They included servers and restaurant owners who feel that a living wage should be the law of the land for all workers, no exceptions. We should respect the will of the voters and protect it from any and all attempts to roll it back.” Bellows said seven states, representing roughly one in five Americans, have no sub-minimum wage for tipped employees. Citing a study by the Economic Policy Institute and the University of California at Berkeley, Bellows said the percentage of tipped workers living in poverty is lower than those living in states with sub-minimum wages, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute and UC Berkeley. Additionally, she said the seven states with no sub-minimum wage law saw their leisure and hospitality industries, which includes a high concentration of tipped workers, grow at a faster rate during a 20-year period ending in 2014 than in the states with a two-tiered minimum wage.
Senate Democratic Leader Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, issued this written statement:
“As a logger who’s seen first-hand what it means to be taken advantage of, I’ve spent my whole life trying to improve the lot of workers. I am confident that this new minimum wage law, including eliminating the sub-minimum wage for servers, will benefit workers in our state, just like it has in other states. Democrats have supported raising the minimum wage for years, but our efforts were thwarted in the Legislature by corporate special interests and the lawmakers in their corner. So voters took matters into their own hands and raised the wage themselves. We should respect the will of the voters.”
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