Minimum wage topic
3 Dems in Wisconsin gov race
WASHINGTON, June 18, (AP): The mayor and congressional delegate may top the ballot in Washington, DC’s primary on Tuesday, but the real drama for voters has to do with waiters, waitresses, bartenders and busboys.
Incumbent Mayor Muriel Bowser is expected to glide through to the nomination with no significant opposition, and the majority of incumbents on the DC Council are predicted to secure the Democratic nomination. The same goes for Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s long-serving non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives.
The actual election in November is even more of a formality in the District of Columbia, where the Republican Party holds little sway.
The greatest question mark surrounds a divisive ballot initiative that would change the way that restaurants and bars pay their tipped employees. Initiative 77 would eliminate the “tipped minimum wage” — the two-tiered system under which restaurant and bar owners pay servers, bartenders and bussers a lower hourly wage with the expectation that they will be compensated with tips from customers.
Currently, these employees can make as little as $3.33 per hour; however, the employer is legally required to make up the difference if the employee’s salary plus tips add up to less than the current minimum wage of $12.50 per hour.
The ballot initiative would require employers to pay everyone at least the minimum wage and would incrementally raise that minimum wage up to $15 per hour by 2025. A similar policy was adopted in New York City in 2015.
Proponents of the initiative argue that it would protect employees from
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain visit Mission San Josè on June
17, in San Antonio, Texas. (AFP)
unscrupulous owners who refuse to follow the law and match wages to bring earnings up to $12.50 per hour. They also say it would reduce sexual harassment by making servers less dependent on the whims of sometimes-inappropriate customers.
However, the proposal has been opposed by a large percentage of both owners and tipped employees. Owners claim that the financial hit could force many bars and restaurants to close — and those that stay in business would only do so by introducing a new service charge, which would have the effect of eliminating most tipping.
Meanwhile, Mahlon Mitchell likes to remind voters while campaigning that they can make history by electing him Wisconsin’s first black governor. Meanwhile, Kathleen Vinehout and Kelda Roys — who breast-fed her daughter in a campaign video — are each hoping to become the first woman to lead the state.
The three are among 10 Democrats vying to run against Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Unlike the seven other candidates and every Wisconsin governor in history, though, they aren’t white men, which could help them distinguish themselves before the Aug. 14 primary.
Wisconsin is one of 28 states where at least one woman is expected to run for governor. Mitchell is one of at least eight black candidates running for governor nationwide.
“We may have all come over here on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now,” Mitchell says in his stump speech.
A firefighter and union leader, Mitchell sometimes invokes the style of former President Barack Obama, copping his rallying cry of “Fired Up! Ready to go!”