Question 5: A ‘yes’ vote means fair wages for servers

Few Americans understand the value of a dollar as well as someone from a working-class family. Growing up in the suburban Midwest, I always knew I wanted to leave, and I always knew it would be hard work to do so. Boston, with its charm and the beauty of New England’s seasons, was the city I fell in love with. But once I got home, I quickly realized that the cost of living here – especially when it comes to an hourly wage – is far from romantic.

Over the past six years I’ve seen the price of everything from eggs to rent to a pint of blond ale skyrocket. Everything, that is, except the cost of my labor. As a young woman who worked three jobs to attend college and still left with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, the prevailing advice I hear from the upper middle class is always the same: “Work harder.” It’s almost laughable to imagine that these champions of hard work could survive a week in my shoes or those of my colleagues. These people wait on and clean up after others fifty to sixty hours a week, but still struggle to make ends meet.

In November, Massachusetts voters will have the chance to decide whether the state should replace the state’s $6.75 tipped minimum wage for servers and bartenders with the state’s minimum wage, which currently stands at $15. Voters must vote yes.

Question 5 is not about the career bartender at a tony establishment making $75,000 to $80,000 one year. This voting question is for my 19 year old colleague who works three times a week while taking classes at the University of Massachusetts. It’s for the tipped restaurant and bar workers who work hard and well while their bosses reap the rewards.

But it’s also for the consumers who deserve to be able to go out and enjoy a beer without feeling like they have to tip 20 percent or more when someone pours them a pint. Subminimum wages force conscientious customers to subsidize an employer’s labor costs with increased tilt.

The opponents of Question 5 consistently present bartenders and servers claiming it will reduce their income – and then say the minimum wage alone is not enough to support them. If even those who oppose raising the $15 per hour wage requirement are inadequate, why are we having a discussion about whether $6.75, the tip minimum, and the capriciousness of tips are enough to get by?

State law requires employers to pay the full minimum wage if tips don’t make up the $8.25 difference between the sub- and minimum wage, but workers know employers don’t always follow the law. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO estimates that indeed that workers in Massachusetts alone will lose $1 billion to wage theft by 2023.

It is beyond me or anyone else in the industry that the opposition is spending millions to convince voters to vote no on Question 5. They have set aside $6 million in advertising space for the last three weeks of the election.

But ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers is the right thing to do. It’s fair to tipped workers, who deserve dignity and respect. It is fair to employers – especially small businesses – who already pay their employees a living wage. It’s fair to the consumer, who doesn’t have to be responsible for ensuring their server is paid adequately.

I’ve been working on this campaign for the past six months for myself, for my colleagues, and for every restaurant worker I’ve met who is praying for this question to pass but is too afraid to speak out. Massachusetts voters will soon have the opportunity to send a loud message on this issue. By voting yes on Question 5, Massachusetts can take a stand against unfair wages, a stand that will be heard nationwide.

Grace McGovern is an organizer of One Fair Wage and a waitress at a brewery in Boston.

Editor’s note:

Massachusetts Ballot Question 5 Summary

The question, which will appear in Massachusetts on Nov. 5, would require employers to increase the minimum hourly wage they pay to tipped workers, such as servers and bartenders. That wage would increase in regular annual increments until it reached the state minimum wage level on January 1, 2029.

Here is the further summary of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s ballot question:

“The proposed law would require employers to continue paying tipped employees the difference between the state minimum wage and the total amount a tipped employee receives in hourly wages plus tips through the end of 2028. The proposed law would also allow employers to calculate this difference. over the entire weekly or biweekly pay period. The obligation to pay this difference would disappear when the required hourly wage for tipped employees became 100 percent of the state minimum wage on January 1, 2029.

“Under the proposed law, if an employer pays its employees an hourly wage that is at least the state minimum wage, the employer would be allowed to operate a ‘tip pool’ that combines and distributes all the tips customers give to tippers. among all employees, including non-tipped employees.”