Michigan Republicans are teaming up with some tipped workers to push for a change to new state minimum wage policies that are set to take effect next year.
Those policies would eventually require businesses to pay tipped workers the full minimum wage by 2030, rather than the separate lower minimum wage that tipped workers currently make.
Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Porter Twp) said the extra costs would be catastrophic for the service industry.
“It doesn’t get the headlines when two people are laid off at this restaurant. Three people are laid off at that restaurant. Two people are laid off at that restaurant. But when you’re dealing with thousands and thousands of restaurants across the state, it easily adds up,” Nesbitt told reporters Wednesday.
The shift in Michigan’s minimum wage policy stems from a 2018 ballot measure that what was then a Republican-controlled Legislature adopted into law before it went before voters. Lawmakers then significantly weakened the law before it went into effect.
Earlier this year, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that practice, known as “adopt and amend,” unconstitutional.
But state agencies said they needed clarity on how to implement the law, given that the original timelines had passed.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court answered those questions, laying out a specific timeline and guidance for how to phase in the wage increases.
Attorney Mark Brewer, who represented the campaign behind the ballot measure in court, was pleased with the response.
“The executive branch had asked the court to clarify its opinion and offered several ways to weaken that opinion, to water down the minimum wage increase. And the court rejected all of those,” Brewer said.
The decisions open the door for the Michigan minimum wage to rise to over $15 an hour by the end of the decade, regardless of tipped status.
Whether the current state Legislature makes any changes to the portion of that law that would phase out the tipped wage credit, as it’s often known, however, remains to be seen.
Earlier this week, labor unions penned a letter to Democratic legislative leadership, asking them to keep the policy in place as is.
But Wednesday morning, the group, Save MI Tips, which formed in the wake of court battles over Adopt and Amend, rallied supporters on the state Capitol lawn, calling for the minimum wage for tipped workers to stay below the general minimum wage, with employers making up the difference if it's not covered by tips.
Danny Napper is a server who said the phasing out of tipped credit will lead to fewer service industry workers and a worse customer experience.
“I’m going to be working way more hours for way less money. And what is that going to do to me? That is going to piss me off, along with all the other server-bartenders,” Napper said.
But Brewer said he felt the original court decision was already fair to businesses.
“Employers got a lot of benefit out of that decision because the court wiped out billions of dollars in backpay liability,” Brewer said, adding “We have these greedy employers who continue to say that paying somebody $15 an hour, which isn’t even a livable wage, is too much.”
