The Fight for Fair Wages
How Question 5 can decide the future of our state's tipped workers
One of the ballot questions posed to Massachusetts this November will be Question 5, the Minimum Wage for Tipped Employees Initiative. As the name implies, it will expand minimum wage law to include tipped employees, creating a statewide $15 per hour legal “fair wage” for everything but agricultural work.
Currently workers such as waitstaff, bartenders, and hairdressers can be paid $6.75 per hour if they expect to make at least $15 per hour with tips. If they make less than this than it falls upon the employer to bring their wages up to a “fair wage”.1 However employers often fail to do so, making the service industry more susceptible to wage theft.2 This year alone, over 23,000 workers in Massachusetts have had their wages stolen, totaling $5 million.3 Tipped employees are some of the most vulnerable workers within the state.
The reliance of service workers on tips for fair compensation creates a culture that elevates the customer to a master. Depending on how they judge a worker’s service, customers can decide if they make enough money to cover rent that month.4 This leads to widespread abuses; many waitresses are sexually harassed by customers.5 The fickle whims of the tipping patron can also bend toward discrimination. Customer bias in tipping has widened a gender and racial pay gap that keeps 59% of Black women in the American restaurant industry earning less than the full minimum wage.6 A tip economy leaves employees’ livings at the mercy of the people they serve. Service workers should not have to practice servility to be fairly compensated for their labor.
Ballot Question 5 has made tipped wages into a issue of state politics. A national service workers’ organization One Fair Wage is campaigning within the state to support the initiative with the backing of two legislators. Saru Jayaraman, their preisdent and spokeswoman, cites the support of “thousands of restaurant workers” for the measure.7 The worker center ROC United, which advocates for restaraunt workers’ rights, has also come out in support of eliminating the tipped wage and raising servers’ wages.8 Their president Dr. Teó Reyes spoke with me over the phone, saying “The main issue we’re looking at right now is that restaurant workers face the lowest wages in the industry. They no longer want to work in restaurants.” Labor shortages have caused some restaurants to raise wages in an attempt to retain their workforce. However without the protections of a bargaining agreement or minimum wage law, these temporary raises are not guaranteed to the vast majority of workers. “The industry is looking to push people back down.”
Meanwhile the Massachusetts Restaurants Organization has spoken out against the fair wage initiative, citing the higher operating expenses that will reduce their profits. They have supported the Committee to Protect Tips, raising nearly $500,000 in cash. Also in opposition to the initiative is Mass Restaurants United, an association of restaurant owners that uses trade union symbolism. They are eager to obscure the division along class lines.
It’s clear that restaurant owners really do not want Massachusetts to adopt this policy. However they are not the only ones with something at stake. The business community is opposing Question 5 in order to protect their profits, while organized workers support Question 5 to raise their wages and secure a better life. If you stand with our tipped laborers, you should vote with them and implement a fair minimum wage for all.
Most Americans tip based on quality of service. See Pew Research Center - Tipping Culture in America
Smart insight on an important issue for millions of Americans.