St. Paul workers, families keep pressure on as council takes up $15

October 19, 2018 by

Mayor Melvin Carter snaps a selfie with advocates for a $15 minimum wage outside City Hall.

It felt like a victory celebration as working people and their families rallied with elected officials outside City Hall Wednesday, just minutes before council members formally introduced an ordinance that would put St. Paul on track to a $15 minimum wage.

The finish line may be in sight, but Mayor Melvin Carter had a warning for supporters.

“We’re not done yet,” he said, listing the procedural hurdles and public hearings the ordinance faces before it can receive a vote. “But I’ve committed myself and our city to passing this into law by the end of the year, and I remain committed. And I want to say thank you to all of you for being engaged.”

Carter was speaking to union members, tipped workers and other low-wage workers who have been pushing for action in St. Paul since Minneapolis adopted its ordinance over a year ago. At the rally, they stood together in support of the proposed ordinance, unveiled a week earlier by Mayor Carter.

Co-authored by five of the council’s seven members (Amy Brendmoen, Mitra Jalali Nelson, Rebecca Noecker, Dai Thao and Chris Tolbert), the ordinance closely mirrors recommendations of a task force that spent more than three months studying the potential effects of a wage hike and listening to workers, business owners and others who would be impacted by the ordinance.

“We have been listening, talking, debating and voting for almost a year now,” said SEIU Healthcare Minnesota Political Director Rick Varco, who co-chaired the task force. “Now is the time to act.”

Action by the council would raise wages for an estimated 56,000 people – nearly a third of the city’s workforce – who earn less than $15 an hour.

Rosalio Vences, a janitor at a Target store in St. Paul, is among them. The cleaning contractor he works for has raised his pay just once – from $11 to $11.25 per hour – in the nearly three years Vences has been on the job. Lately, he said, the boss has been cutting hours off his scheduled shifts, too.

“But they always give us a raise in workload,” Vences said. “We always have more work to do, faster and faster.”

With the extra money he’d be earning with a $15 minimum wage, Vences could afford to move out of the room he rents in someone else’s home and get his own place. “With our current wages, we can’t afford to pay our rent and our bills,” he said.

Erin Lynch, a server at a full-service restaurant in St. Paul, speaks at a press conference staged by supporters of a $15 minimum wage with no tip adjustment.

Servers like Erin Lynch also praised the proposed ordinance, which would not carve out a lower wage for workers who earn tips. The question of whether to include a so-called “tip adjustment” has been a focus of debate, but Lynch said earning a livable wage makes servers more likely to stand up to harassment from customers and managers who “wave the prospect of a tip over your head.”

Restaurant workers experience sexual harassment on the job more frequently than workers in any other industry. A 2014 report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United found 9 of 10 women working in the industry had experienced sexual harassment on the job, and so had 7 of 10 men. Sexual harassment is more prevalent, the report found, in states that allow servers and bartenders to be paid less than minimum wage.

“It’s really demoralizing that me and my coworkers have to put up with this stuff every day, to varying amounts,” Lynch said. “A $15 an hour minimum wage would alleviate this and would lessen my dependence on tips. It puts me in a better position to stand up for my dignity.”

The ordinance, as currently drafted, would take effect in 2020, and would affect employers differently based on their size.

Large businesses – those with more than 100 workers – would be required to pay $15 per hour by July 1, 2023. Workers at small businesses would reach $15 by July 1, 2026. Microbusinesses – those with five or fewer employees – would have two more years to phase in the full minimum wage, which would adjust annually for inflation.

The ordinance also would put the city’s own employees on track to earn $15 by July 1, 2022.

The Met Council’s most recent analysis of census data shows 40.8 percent of St. Paul residents live in poverty, a higher rate than any other metro-area community.

“We’re so grateful to the mayor for having listened to our words to help bring change with our employers,” Vences, a member of the Twin Cities worker center CTUL, said. “For so long we’ve been lifting our voices to say we need a raise to $15 an hour.”

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Four takeaways from the new report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage

February 22, 2018 by

Jess Manthe, a longtime retail worker in St. Paul, speaks at a rally outside council chambers, calling poverty wages a barrier to the middle class for too many people in the city.

Low-wage workers listened as the author of a report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage summarized her findings at yesterday’s City Council meeting. Then they put council members on notice.

“Now is the time for the city to take a stand and get us the wages we need,” personal care attendant Daniel Maddox, a member of the low-wage worker center CTUL, said during a brief rally outside council chambers.

Council members at the meeting indicated they plan to move at a more deliberate pace. Council President Amy Brendmoen said the plan is to “have an ordinance in front of us by fall.”

What that ordinance should look like is already the subject of a heated debate, as the report presented yesterday confirmed.

The nonpartisan Citizens League prepared the report to give council members an overview of available data and research on the topic, and to identify which constituencies are likely to be impacted by a higher minimum wage. It’s available on the Citizen League’s website.

Here are four takeaways from the report and Citizen League Executive Director Pahoua Yang Hoffman’s presentation to the Council yesterday.

1. Despite an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent, too many working people and families in St. Paul live in poverty.

The Met Council’s most recent analysis of census data shows 40.8 percent of St. Paul residents live in poverty, a higher rate than any other metro-area community. And areas of concentrated poverty are spreading within the city, a trend Ward 7’s Jane Prince called “disturbing.”

Jess Manthe, a longtime retail worker in St. Paul, called poverty wages a barrier to the middle class.

“I have huge amounts of (student) debt that I’ll carry with me for the next 25 years,” she said. “Our unlivable wages mean my husband and I aren’t going to be able to buy a house, and having kids is completely off the table. I think it’s time for St. Paul to invest in its workers.”

2. People working for poverty wages know their paychecks don’t get bigger by accident or their bosses’ goodwill.

In preparing the Citizens League’s report, Hoffman met with more than 100 “stakeholders.” In her presentation to the Council, she singled out the story of a retail janitor who, after 14 years on the job, has seen her wages increase from $7.25 to $10.75 per hour.

The state minimum wage has increased from $6.15 to $9.65 over the same time frame. “She wanted me to let you know that if not for a mandate, she may never get to $15,” Hoffman said.

3. The janitor working for $10.75 after 14 years on the job is not a statistical outlier. In St. Paul poverty wages affect workers of all ages.

Stereotypes that cast minimum-wage earners as students working around classes or retirees keeping themselves busy are bogus. The Citizens League report cites a 2016 study by the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, which considered the impacts of a minimum-wage increase in Minneapolis and in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

“There is no distinction between ages where there might be in other cities, where low-wage workers might be younger or older,” Hoffman said.

Tipped workers packed council chambers to hear the report on raising St. Paul’s minimum wage.

4. Whether it’s a tip penalty or a training wage, interest groups will attempt to poke holes in St. Paul’s minimum wage.

The Citizens League report reflects a split within the restaurant industry over the tip penalty, which allows employers to pay a sub-minimum wage as long as workers make up the difference in tips. Working people on both sides of the issue showed up in council chambers yesterday.

Servers who support a tip penalty say a lower minimum wage is vital to their employers’ profitability, as well as preservation of a tipping culture. Opponents argue the tip penalty opens the door to wage theft, as some employers fail to make up the difference between workers’ tips and the minimum wage.

Research also shows tip penalties contribute to a culture of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry. A study released earlier this month found female tipped workers in states like Minnesota experience report sexual harassment at half the rate of their counterparts in states with a lower minimum wage for tipped workers.

Catherine Olsen, a tipped worker at a small business in St. Paul, called on city officials to pass an ordinance lifting all workers to $15 per hour, with no tip penalty and no youth wage. “St. Paul has an opportunity to act now and act fast – and to not leave anybody behind,” she said.

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One Fair Wage or tip penalty? Debate splits St. Paul service industry

January 24, 2018 by

The minimum wage debate in St. Paul has only begun, and already tipped workers are at the forefront.

Two public events this month exposed a divide within the restaurant industry over whether employers should be allowed to pay less than minimum wage, as long as workers make up the difference in tip income.

Proponents call it a “tip credit.” Opponents call it a “tip penalty.”

Whatever it’s called, Minnesota is one of just seven states without one, and that won’t change as Minneapolis’ citywide minimum wage edges closer to $15 over the next six years.

But it’s not for the restaurant industry’s lack of trying. Employers lobbied fiercely for a tip penalty last year in Minneapolis. At the Capitol, they backed Republican lawmakers’ bill to block cities from passing minimum-wage ordinances.

So it’s unlikely the restaurant industry will sit on the sidelines as St. Paul’s newly elected mayor, Melvin Carter, looks to deliver on his campaign pledge to make $15 a reality in the capital city.

A push for ‘one fair wage’

Unions and worker advocacy groups like the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, which is organizing tipped workers in St. Paul, oppose a two-tier wage system. They argue it leaves behind the very workers a minimum-wage increase is supposed to benefit.

“If your business is on the verge of closing because your workers demand to be paid an equitable wage, then you need to think twice about your business model,” said Steven Lewer, a server who lives and works in St. Paul and a supporter of maintaining one fair wage in his industry.

Government data shows job growth in the restaurant industry is outpacing any other area of the economy, but average earnings in the industry – $22,350 per year for full-service waitstaff in Minnesota – are stuck at the poverty level.

That’s why lawmakers in New York, Michigan and elsewhere are moving to roll back tip penalties, ROC United President Saru Jayaraman told tipped workers gathered at the St. Paul Labor Center Jan. 17.

“You as a state have been a shining example for the rest of us,” Jayaraman said. “Why would we consider going backward in St. Paul when the rest of the country is going forward?”

ROC United’s Saru Jayaraman talked with tipped workers supporting one fair wage in St. Paul.

An imbalance of power

Jayaraman presented evidence that restaurant workers in states with a tip penalty experience sexual harassment at nearly double the rate of their counterparts in states like Minnesota. The connection between tipping and harassment isn’t hard to understand, St. Paul server Sarah Kopp-Reddy said.

“When tipped workers rely too heavily on tips, it becomes a lot easier for power dynamics to be thrown off,” Kopp-Reddy said. “When power dynamics are off, servers put up with a lot more. The customer can truly never be wrong.”

Restaurant workers in the U.S. already experience sexual harassment more frequently than workers in any other industry, according to a Buzzfeed analysis of complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A ROC United survey found 90 percent of women working in the restaurant industry have experienced sexual harassment.

Many employers in the industry, Lewer said, take advantage of workers’ reliance on tips to create a “toxic work environment.”

“Employers will say you’re not smiling enough, or you need to be able to take this harassment you’re getting at the table,” Lewer said. “You’re going to view those things as OK because you need the job, you need the tips. That’s not the way a working environment should exist.”

A split among servers

Lewer and Kopp-Reddy, both 28, see growing support among tipped workers in St. Paul for an ordinance establishing one fair wage, but they acknowledged support is far from universal.

Proponents of the tip penalty staged a public event Jan. 8 at a Cathedral Hill bar, where restaurant owners and staff made the case for paying tipped workers less. Several servers and bartenders expressed concern that their employers would not be able to absorb a higher minimum wage, or that patrons would no longer leave tips.

One shift manager from a bar on West 7th Street spoke on behalf of his wife, a server who, when it comes to higher wages, “doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it.” A bartender from Minneapolis said he’s looking for work in St. Paul now that his hourly wage is on track to increase annually. The owner of a Como Park eatery warned that iPads could replace waitstaff if their wages go up.

Doomsday predictions and scare tactics are a permanent fixture of the minimum wage debate, Jayaraman said, but they aren’t backed up by empirical evidence.

Look no further than Minnesota’s own restaurant industry. The state’s minimum wage has increased by 33 percent since 2014, when state lawmakers passed the first increase in decades. Despite dire warnings from industry lobbyists during the legislative process, employment in restaurants and bars has grown by over 16,000  since 2014, according to data compiled by the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development. On average, people working in restaurants are earning $57 more per week.

“Tipping isn’t going to go away” as the minimum wage goes up, Jayaraman said. “But no amount of evidence seems to overcome fear.

“What we’re trying to do is offer hope, to let people know that there’s a beautiful future on the horizon in which we, as tipped workers, are treated as the professionals we truly are.”

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