Rachel May, a 35-year-old bartender at Applebee’s, opposes Michigan phasing out its tipping system. She wants state officials to know she chose to be part of the tipped worker industry, and “we’re not some poor little servants that are underpaid.”
May was around 20 years old when she first served in a restaurant. She currently works in an optician’s office, but she keeps picking up shifts at a Lansing area Applebee’s, explaining to MIRS that “I make way more money bartending” although her office job is simpler and easier.
When she works a double shift on Sundays, May said she usually walks out with about $500 in tips on average. However, she made as much as $700 in tips on a Sunday evening.
She’s been in the industry for more than a decade, and says an employer has never needed to make up the difference, which is what restaurateurs are required to do if their wait staff doesn’t earn at least minimum wage through tips.
“I do my office job, and then I bar-tend on the side to make extra money, because it is convenient. You’ve got an extra bill that’s coming up? You need a couple extra dollars? You can pick up a shift and easily make that bill in a shift,” May said. “I can (sometimes pay) two bills in a shift.”
May spoke with MIRS during an event hosted on Wednesday by the Save MI Tips coalition, taking place inside of Lansing’s Nuthouse Sports Grill on Michigan Avenue, less than a mile away from the state Capitol.
The coalition is responding to a July 31 ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court that will result in a five-year phase-out of the state’s tipping standards, instructing waitstaff to be paid a $15 hourly minimum wage by 2030.
Six years ago, lawmakers altered the content of two petition efforts that gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot. The one relevant to Wednesday’s rally increased the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2022 and the gradual elimination of Michigan’s tipping system.
Instead of the questions being voted on, Republican legislators watered down the meat of the proposals and passed them, establishing statutes where the tip credit system would continue and Michigan’s minimum wage would reach $12.05 by 2030.
On party-lines, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Republican-led Legislature’s adopt-and-amend tactic was unconstitutional.
When asked what she would say to people who think phasing out Michigan’s tipping system gives wait staffs a better deal, 42-year-old Vanessa Kragnik quickly showed off her middle finger.
“It takes a certain type of person to be a server or a bartender, and not everybody can actually do it. You have to have thick skin,” Kragnik said.
If the present-day legislators don’t work to safeguard tips, Kragnik would like them to also be subjected to a pay cut, as she’s become used to walking out with $100, at least, daily in her job through tips.
According to finance calculations, an hourly rate of $15 would result in a worker earning $120 daily, $600 weekly, if they’re working 40 hours per week.
Forty-five-year-old Ramona Cross left her minimum wage job at a portrait studio to become a waitress, for the first time, two years ago. She told MIRS that when her dad died, she picked up extra shifts at Applebee’s, using her tips to cover travel costs to attend his funeral in Pittsburgh, as well as to ensure she didn’t take any financial hits on the time off.
“You pick up an extra shift, and that’s your rainy day (fund),” Cross said.
Moreover, for May, she depends on her tips to cover her daughter’s sports expenses. She said her daughter is part of an elite soccer team costing nearly $4,000 annually, and the tips also come in handy when she wants to buy her daughter back-to-school sneakers or to go out to the movies with her.
May projects that phasing out the tip system will result in job losses, particularly for younger and less experienced servers, “because if you’re not a strong server, they’re not going to pay you minimum wage, because they’re only going to have a couple servers on each shift.”
“You’re going to have longer wait times in restaurants, your food prices are going to be higher (and) your service is not going to be as great,” she said.
Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) has introduced legislation maintaining Michigan’s standards for paid sick leave, tipped wage and minimum wage as they are.
Article courtesy MIRS News for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter
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