State tourism industry has new PAC in fight vs. wage amendment

The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, which represents many of the state’s low-wage tourism employers, is preparing for a brawl with Orlando trial attorney John Morgan and other supporters of raising the minimum wage to $15.

A new political action committee, called Save Florida Jobs, has raised $50,000 from the National Restaurant Association and $5,000 from Red Lobster to fight the wage amendment that will be on Florida’s ballot this year.

Raising the minimum wage could create unintended consequences, said Carol Dover, FRLA’s president and CEO, that could hurt its members. The association counts representatives from Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants and McDonald’s as board members.

The PAC, set up last month, will finance FRLA’s fight against the amendment that would gradually raise Florida’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026. Florida’s minimum wage rose by a dime in 2020 to $8.56 an hour and increased by just 63 cents during the previous six years.

For the amendment to pass, it will need at least 60% of the vote in November.

The minimum wage would not immediately jump 75% if the amendment passes. The measure would increase Florida’s minimum wage first to $10 by September 2021 — a 17% increase. Then it would rise $1 a year until it hits $15 in September 2026.

Dover, who represents companies that employ 1.6 million tourism and service industry workers, said that increase could lead to job loses, benefit cuts and more companies turning to automation to replace workers.

“Many people [would have to] have two jobs and three jobs to make up for the one good job they have,” Dover said.

But Morgan, who said he’s collected 1 million signatures in support of the increase, noted many workers are already resorting to working multiple jobs to pay for basic needs.

“Would you rather work 32 hours and make $15 an hour or work 40 hours and make $8 an hour?” Morgan said. “You know what, cut me back, I’ll go get a second job at $15.”

Some of the region’s biggest employers including Disney have already committed to raising their starting hourly wages to $15 an hour. Disney will increase wages to that level by 2021 for its unionized employees. Universal will start workers at $15 an hour when it opens its new theme park, Epic Universe, in 2023.

In December, the Sentinel published a series of stories called “Laborland” on the role low wages play in creating hardship for many tourism workers, some who resort to sleeping in their cars and others who can’t afford a bedroom for their child.

Across the state, theme park attendants made a median hourly wage of $9.92 in 2018, while fast food cooks made $10.27 an hour and housekeepers earned $10.69, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

FRLA has taken on a minimum wage amendment before. In 2004, another PAC established by the association under a similar name, the Coalition to Save Florida Jobs, raised $4.1 million to fight an amendment that tied minimum wage increases to inflation, raising the floor to $6.15. The amendment passed with more than 70% of the vote.

Morgan sees the issue as simple. He employs low-wage workers at attraction WonderWorks, who he said he pays $13 or $14 an hour, and said he would “love” the opportunity to tell his business partners that they’d have to start everyone at $15 if the amendment passes.

“If somebody goes from $8 to $15, it is not just a little boost, it is life changing,” Morgan said. “They can get out of their car and get into an apartment.”