| Library of Congress |
| Waiters Strike, 1910 |
Tomorrow, a delegation of servers wearing customized aprons ("Save Our Tips" is embroidered on the front, "Stop House Bill 258" is on the back) will arrive in Jefferson City to lobby members of the Missouri House of Representatives to vote no on House Bill 258, which would roll the minimum wage for tipped servers back to what it was 15 years ago. I was a waiter 15 years ago, so I can personally attest to how lousy that minimum wage was!
House Bill 258 has yet to be put on the calendar for a legislative vote, says Lara Granich, who is heading the "Save Our Tips" campaign for Missouri Jobs with Justice. "But it could be any day now."
Granich tells me that it isn't an enormous number of servers taking on this duty of serving up an anti-Bill 258 campaign. Between ten and twenty waiters and waitresses are scheduled to meet with legislators -- they represent 53,000 servers in Missouri.
Ten or twenty? Is that enough, I wondered? "Definitely," says Granich. "I don't think the legislators realize how many people are watching this vote."
Sponsored by State Representative Tim Jones of Eureka, Missouri, the bill would put employee wages back to $2.13 an hour. The Missouri Restaurant Association, unsurprisingly, is supporting the measure; in tough economic times, restaurants are looking at the bottom line.
Granich responds: "Most of the legislators we've spoken with see that it's senseless to take wages out of Missouri during an economic crisis. A lot of those legislators have either been servers in the past or have sons and daughters who are waiting tables now, so they have a personal connection to the issue."
Two local restaurant owners -- who requested to remain nameless -- are hoping House Bill 258 does pass: "It might keep us in business," one of them insisted. "But I don't want my staff to know how I feel. It's a volatile issue."
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I work in a grocery store in Kansas. I make $11.25 an hour stocking frozen food, checking, sacking, greeting customer, and help them find their items. My roommate works at a restaurant, she will never make more than $7.90 an hour as host and cashier; that is the highest this place pays. She hopes that by learning to be a server she can make more money. She is also a full time student. With the price of quality higher education going up as well as the interest earned on loans for said educatoin it is almost impossible to live.
630 rent(315 each)
35 internet
65 electric
55 gas
45 water
150 phone( hers and my plans)
160 gas (her and me)
120 food
toal 1260
While yes when you split that in half it doesn't seem so bad but when you can't work 40+ hours a week to make the money to pay the bills it really adds up.
It's a lot to pay, and I'm done with school and make tons more than my poor roommate. If she doesn't make enough to cover her share apartment costs I have to make them up with my money. I also did not include things like car payment(mine) and care insurance or care maintance(the brakes on my car were just resently recalled). If we add that to the bill then it goes up to about 1725, but those are costs that we don't split. We don't split phone plans either but it all gets added in sometime.
Everyone deserves a living wage, $2.13 is not a living wage. The federal $7.25 is not a living wage either, but it isa bit more obtainable with help. Most people who go to restaurants don't tip the 15%. Even with tips how is a server to make 7.25 an hour, the tips have taxes take out at some point. Yes all wages have taxes but those are added into the weekly, bi-weekly, monthly check. Tips are not, a server will have to declare them when they pay taxes and will have to PAY the sate and the feds. Restaurants have already cut the amount of food given to customers and raised the prices so they can keep thier corporate pockets lined. Honestly it is not that hard to give servers a real wage, so the company doens't make 3 billion dollars in profits that year, so what. With thier employees actually making money they will be able to buy things, not just the things they need to live, and support the economy, helping other businesses thrive who could spend some of thier money at the others restaurant.
It's a viscious circle but it needs to start somewhere.
I agree when you say that people need to understand the issue. That is why I decided to respond to your comments, anonymous, because it's obvious that you're only representing one side of the issue, your own. You seem to be like every other restaurant owner that I've ever worked for in this industry: greedy and self-serving. The fact of the matter is that Missouri and Kansas are finally starting to adopt some of the policies that have existed in other states for years. Not many people know that unions were actually formed in some states pertaining to the service industry. Restaurant owners pay their employees slave wages because society deems it appropriate to give a tip if service was acceptable or better. Obviously the owners, such as yourself, figure that as long as the public can pay my employees for me, why should I? The answer to this question is simple. While the main reason that people dine in a restaurant is the food, they WILL NOT return unless the service meets their standards. My regulars continue to request me in my restaurant because of the experience that I provide for them, not only because of the food. If you have a restaurant with excellent food, but poor service, or excellent service with poor food, the restaurant will fail. Both aspects are required to truly have a great restaurant. This is why you should pay your employees. Because they keep you in business, you selfish fool.
People need to understand the issue here. Servers make their money in tips. If a server does not make enough in tips to cover the $7.05 minimum wage, the restaurant compensates to that level. Paying a server $2.13 per hour vs. $3.525 (current level now, it will go up as the state min. increases) may mean an extra $15-$20 on a servers paycheck. It absolutely means an added $40,000-$50,000 a year in payroll expense to the restaurant. Most servers that work for me are making $500-$1,000 a week in tips. Do you think they care about a $20 paycheck? If a server is not making minimum wage through tips, they are either very bad at their job, or working at a failing restaurant. The earned tip credit needs to be moved back to $2.13. That is what it is in Kansas, and you will see many Missouri establishments either fail or move across the state line (Strouds??) if the state does not take steps to correct their error.
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