Mothers against minimum wage

Reprinted from the Oregon AFL-CIO Capitol Connection

(3/21/2005) -- Today a half a dozen minimum wage waiters and waitresses participated in a "forum" on the tip penalty hosted by the Oregon House Democrats in Salem. They were there to defend their paychecks against attacks by the Oregon Restaurant Association (ORA).

Leading the attack was Lisa Schroeder, owner of Mother's Bistro and Mama Mia Trattoria in Portland, Rod Brackenbury and Terry Hughes, owners of the Cadillac Cafe in Portland and Joe Benetti, owner of Bennetti’s restaurant in Coos Bay.

Schroeder, who owns two prosperous restaurants in downtown Portland cited the high earnings of the servers she employs as a reason why the legislature should freeze the pay for all minimum-wage servers in Oregon.

She told House lawmakers that servers in her restaurants earn $30 to $40 per hour in wages and tips combined. As a result, she says, she can’t afford to pay her cooks what they deserve. Her solution to this problem: Support legislation sponsored by the Oregon Restaurant Association to freeze the minimum wage for all workers in Oregon who earn more than $30 a month in tips.

Schroeder has made her reputation with comfort food. "The world needs food that mothers would make if only they had the time," she states on one website of favorite recipes. But her thinking gives us little comfort.

Here’s why. Her 65-seat Bistro is always busy, employing, by our observation, about six servers and three cooks during peak periods. According to Schroeder, those servers are earning about $23 to $33 in tips per hour in addition to the minimum wage of $7.25. If she didn’t have to pay an additional 20 cents an hour or so in minimum wage increases for those servers every year, she says, she could direct that money to the cooks instead.

Okay, let’s do the math. Freezing the minimum wage for tipped workers would save Schroeder about $1.20 per hour during peak periods (20 cents per hour for each of six servers = $1.20 per hour total). If she gave that money to her cooks instead of keeping it herself, she could increase their pay an average of $0.40 per hour ($1.20 divided among the three cooks).

Now let’s look at how Schroeder’s "solution" might affect workers in the rest of the state.

There are 24,000 waiters and waitresses and another 25,000 tipped workers in other low-paid occupations like bartenders, maids and porters. Of these, we estimate that there are at least 20,000 workers who earn no more than the minimum wage and also earn $30 a month or more in tips. Most of these workers will never eat at Mother’s, but they might want to pay attention to Mother’s math.

Schroeder would like the Oregon legislature to freeze the pay of these 20,000 minimum-wage workers in Oregon so that she can solve what she claims is a pay equity problem in her restaurant. If it’s true that servers at Mother’s earn $30 to $40 an hour in wages and tips, they might not even notice the loss of 20 cents per hour next year, and maybe her cooks would really appreciate that extra 40 cents. But that’s hardly the point when you ask the legislature to pass a law that applies to every minimum-wage worker in the state.

Those who would suffer the most under Schroeder’s proposal are the minimum-wage servers, most of whom earn about $10 an hour or less in wages and tips. Those who would gain are either: (a) the cooks and other "back of the house" workers if restaurant owners decide to pass along their savings to them; or (b) the owners, if they decide to keep the savings for themselves.

When asked by lawmakers for a guarantee that restaurant owners would pass the extra money to the back of the house, Schroeder said that they should just "roll the dice," pass the legislation and see what happens.

That’s bad enough. But what bothers us most about Schroeder’s proposal is not that she assumes some servers earn so much money in tips that they shouldn’t get the minimum wage. (We disagree, but there is no commandment against coveting thy workers’ tips.) It’s that she is asserting that the solution to the problem of minimum-wage servers harvesting so much of her customers’ money in tips in Portland is to freeze the pay of all minimum-wage servers in Oregon at every Denny’s and Shari’s and Mary’s from Lakeview to Astoria.

No wonder working people in the rest of Oregon are inclined to resent the arrogance of Portland liberals. And it doesn’t help that the brochure prepared by the Oregon Restaurant Association to promote its proposal features an attractive waitress in pearls serving a tiramisu.

Let’s watch to see who votes for this share-the-wealth proposal for the tiramisu crowd – because whoever votes for Mother’s proposal will be stiffing the 20,000 workers slinging beers and burgers in bars and diners, carrying bags and cleaning hotel rooms and trying their best to support their families on paychecks that are melting faster than a parfait in a fondue bowl.

Who is Oregon Restaurant Association Really Trying to Help?

The irony of locally owned businesses lobbying for the ORA seemed to be lost on the restaurant owners in Salem today. They appear not to have read the glossy lobbying piece the ORA has been circulating in the state capitol, which says the tip wage would "help stabilize the industry and allow for new national chains to operate in Oregon..."

The ORA's lobbying piece also claims that waiters and waitresses will make more money if lawmakers pass a tip penalty wage.

But Josh Gibson, a Portland waiter, was also there today, and he said it isn't true. He has worked in a state with a tip penalty and he told of his first-hand experience of how all workers made less there. He also spoke eloquently of how he counts on both his wages and his tips to make a living and asked the lawmakers not to cut his paycheck. And, finally, he pointed out the absurdity of the ORA’s proposal.

"If the idea here is to redistribute income, I’ll sign up for that," he told the Democratic lawmakers. "But let’s start with ball players, not waiters."

Minimum Wage Freeze Could Come to a Vote Soon

According to the Oregon Restaurant Association's website, there will be a hearing on the tip wage bill before the end of the month, which is just next week, and it will come to a full vote of the House of Representatives in April. Tell your lawmaker to get the REAL facts about Oregon’s minimum wage and not to rely on the misinformation campaign of the Oregon Restaurant Association.