Five servers at a restaurant in Portland called Five Fifty-Five have quit in one hell of a mic drop, giving their notice in a Portland Press Herald op-ed. The inciting incident was when their boss, Michelle Corry, wrote an op-ed that claimed to speak for her employees about the citizen-initiated ballot referendum in the state…. If this sounds kind of like employers really just want to keep paying their employees slave wages, congratulations! You are good at reading…. Right, back to Maine and Michelle Corry’s op-ed. So, Corry argued strongly for a counter-proposal to the ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage to only $10 and keep the tip credit intact…. [I]n arguing for it, Corry tried to speak for those it would directly affect: “Ask any tipped employee at a restaurant near you if they would prefer to make a set wage or hustle and create their own destiny. The employees at my restaurant would always choose their own initiative.”
To say that considerable degrees of misconceptions and disinformation are employed to make arguments for and against a $15 minimum wage would be something of an understatement. The fuzzy math, shaky logic, and outright fear-mongering most often used by those who oppose increasing the minimum is if nothing else a monument to self-interest and greed.
On the one hand, $15 is just a number. There’s no research (at least so far as I’m aware) which definitively proves that paying someone a minimum of $15/hour is the magic bullet that will kill poverty in America. On the other hand, when you consider that the minimum wage in many states is still set at the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25/hour, last changed in 2009), it seems clear something needs to be done. No one who works a full-time job should have to decide between paying the rent, keeping the lights on, and/or feeding their family.
I once heard the idea behind the minimum wage explained in a manner as sad as it is devastatingly accurate. To paraphrase, it was something like “I’d pay you even less if I could, but federal law prevents me from doing so.” No one wants to work for minimum wage, but the economic reality is that society needs someone to flip our burgers, collect our garbage, or do the myriad number of other jobs open to those lacking in skills and/or education. That in no ways means that those filling those jobs are “less than” and should be grateful for whatever crumbs fall to them. We’re talking about honorable work…in some cases hard, exhausting, thankless work…and no one who works hard should have to live in poverty.
Then there are the employers who believe that because they’re the ones writing the checks they have the right to treat employees as they choose and that they and only they are able to address the concerns of their employees. In some cases, this means presuming to speak for them…because an employer ALWAYS has the best interests of their employees in mind…right??
On behalf of myself and four other employees at the restaurant Five Fifty-Five (who wish to not have their names made public for fear of its affecting their careers), I’d like to make something very clear: Our boss, Michelle Corry, doesn’t speak for us on the minimum wage (“Maine Voices: Minimum-wage proposal could wipe out margins, put restaurants in peril,” March 22).
There have been many issues at the restaurant, from capricious schedule changes to questionable practices on wages and tips. This latest insult of our boss falsely claiming to speak publicly on our behalf on an issue we care deeply about is just the final straw. We are submitting our notice and will be leaving her employment.
[Heather McIntosh drops microphone, exits stage left]
I can understand the perspective of a small business owner like Corry, whose kneejerk (and perhaps not altogether inaccurate) response is to equate higher labor costs with lower profit margins and increased challenges to her restaurant’s long-term viability. Except that increasing the minimum wage is not a simple black-and-white, cause-and-effect relationship. Corry understandably has difficulty seeing past her own self-interest, but that hardly gives her cause to presume to speak on behalf of her employees, several of whom disagreed strongly enough to walk out on her.
Well played, people. Well played.
Corry perhaps lacks the perspective and/or economic grounding to understand what impact increasing the minimum wage would have on her restaurant. The alternative would be the status quo, which ties much of a server’s income to the whims and peccadilloes of customers, many of whom simply don’t understand the realities of making a living waiting on tables.
[W]e support a real minimum-wage increase that includes waiters and waitresses. It will help build a stronger local economy and a stronger restaurant industry, just as similar increases have done across the country.
The referendum on the ballot this November to raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $9 in 2017 and then a dollar a year until it reaches $12 an hour in 2020 is eminently reasonable. The ballot initiative also includes a desperately needed and long-overdue provision to increase the subminimum wage for workers, like us, who receive tips, from $3.75 to $5 in 2017 and then a dollar a year until it reaches the full minimum wage.
Even those advocating for an increase in the minimum wage understand that the proposed changes need to be phased in over time in order to minimize any negative impact on businesses and customers. It’s not an ideal solution, to be certain, but a gradual approach seems the best way to reach something at least minimally approaching a more fair and humane minimum wage.
Right now, even working at a Portland-based fine-dining establishment like Five Fifty-Five, our schedules and incomes are inconsistent week to week and season to season. We never know if we’ll make enough to pay the rent or pay for child care.
For many restaurant workers, it’s much worse. The average wage for a server in Maine, including tips, is just $8.72 an hour. Tipped workers are three times more likely to live in poverty than other workers and twice as likely to need to access food stamps.
While I understand that a business owner’s initially negative reaction may be based on self-interest and concern for continued profitability, there’s another cost that’s not being acknowledged. The cost of high turnover of disgruntled employees, and the cost of customers who leave dissatisfied because of poor service provided by servers frustrated because they can’t make ends meet can kill a business, particularly a restaurant.
No one should have to work for a “subminimum’ wage, nor should anyone who works hard be faced with not being able to make ends meet. It’s time for business owners to stop refusing to look beyond their own self-interest and realize that without their employees they wouldn’t have a business.
I suspect that increasing the minimum wage will be something whose initial impact will be quickly adapted to by workers, business owners, and customers. If these changes mean a segment of the population are better able to make ends meet, I think it will be a net positive. It’s time we did the right thing by those we far too often take for granted.
