by Julie Gowel ·
Friday, October 25, 2024
Question 5 on the Massachusetts state ballot asks voters to decide if the minimum wage for tipped employees should be raised from $6.75 per hour to the state’s minimum hourly wage over a five-year period.
According to state law, a tipped employee is any member of a wait staff such as a waiter, waitress, bus person, bartender, or counter service worker, not performing managerial tasks. Additionally, tipped workers are service employees who perform duties in which they customarily receive tips or gratuities, such as hair stylists, bellhops, and chauffeurs.
Here is where it gets confusing. In 2018, a law was passed to increase the minimum amount establishments can pay employees, hourly, to $6.75. Any tips earned are the employee’s to keep, unless they pool tips and disburse equally. However, the tips earned must bring the employee to the state’s minimum wage of $15 per hour. If there aren’t enough tips to cover the full minimum wage, the establishment must pay the difference to the employee.
One Fair Wage is an advocacy group seeking to raise the minimum wage for all service employees. It acknowledges that most small businesses in Massachusetts are already paying employees the full state minimum wage plus tips. The effort is focused on the large chains that they say are taking advantage of employees. On its website, One Fair Wage said, “Tips should be a reward for good service, not a subsidy for low wages paid by large corporations.”
On the flip side, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA) and Mass Restaurants United (MRU), two advocacy groups for local businesses, oppose the change to the law. Criticizing One Fair Wage as out-of-town activists (it is based in California), the MRA seeks to educate service industry employees, and the general public about the negative impact raising the minimum wage would have on local business. Both organizations claim the law change would increase costs for employers, decrease the amount earned by employees, and increase costs to consumers.
The law would not affect Harvard’s few service establishments. The General Store is not subject to the law as owner Scott Hayward said he already pays employees at least the state’s minimum wage. Siam Pepper, on Ayer Road, is a family business and thus not impacted by the ballot question, according to an employee who preferred to remain anonymous.
The Press sought to speak to tipped employees in Devens, specifically at Bandoleros and Canteen, but was met with reticence. Emily Landine and Jene Gallant, employees at Marty’s Corner Cafe and Deli, said the ballot question would not impact them as they make at least the state’s minimum wage of $15 per hour, plus tips.