Detroit One Fair Wage Rally Takes Place Mile Away From ‘Petrified’ Waitress

(DETROIT) – Around 60 people attended a rally Tuesday celebrating the court ruling that stands to terminate restaurants’ ability to pay waitstaff a sub-minimum wage in Michigan.

Less than a mile away, a Detroit waitress says that a future without Michigan’s current tipping structure petrifies her.

Tuesday, One Fair Wage, the national group wanting to abolish the use of sub-minimum wages for tipped employees, hosted a rally at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History.

“This is the best news you can hear right now, because people will start being able to live off of what they make,” was overhead at the Cross Country.

But following Tuesday’s event that commemorated the Michigan Supreme Court’s July 31 ruling, MIRS stopped by Mario’s Restaurant.

The Italian restaurant was about a four-minute car ride away, and has operated in Detroit since 1948. However, after more than seven decades in business, one of Mario’s waitresses fears that ending Michigan’s current tipping structure could cause things to “crash and burn.”

MIRS spent the afternoon talking to Mary Harvey, who said she’s worked at Mario’s for 27 years. Earlier in life, Harvey wanted to attend college to become an accountant, but she continued her life in the restaurant industry when her husband “got very sick.” Nowadays, she begins her work days with an hour-long commute to Mario’s, having some “really, really good” days in terms of tips, and some mediocre days that still keep her above $15 per hour.

“It’s carried me through. I mean, it’s been my life. I like it because I like people . . . so it’s a good job for me, and I make a decent living now,” Harvey said, explaining that if waitresses needed to be paid $15 hourly by their employers, “we’ll all have to go search around for different jobs, where this is our career.”

Harvey said she did not know there was a One Fair Wage event taking place less than a mile from her workplace, adding that she’s never had a conversation with one of its organizers about what the sub-minimum wage structure means to her.

“We’re already hurting at the gas pumps, the grocery stores and whatever. So now you want to drop us down to $15 an hour? What? So we can’t have a house at all? Can’t have a car, no insurance…” she said, describing earlier that “If you try to make the actual restaurant owners pay for that, they’re going to crash and burn, then all those favorite restaurants that you love so much will not exist anymore.”

Based on 65 salary reports to Indeed, Detroit servers earn $11.56 hourly on the lowest end and up to $34.06 on the highest, with the average being $19.84 hourly.

But at the same time, the Detroit region, containing 11 different counties in Southeast Michigan, has reportedly experienced a drop in restaurant jobs. For example, according to the Detroit Regional Chamber, employment in the region’s leisure and hospitality industry saw new jobs reduced by 23,415 from 2018 to 2022.

What Happened At Tuesday’s One Fair Wage Rally?

As for the One Fair Wage event that kicked off after 10 a.m. Tuesday, the rally discussed how the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling gradually creates a system where tipped employees earn $15 annually, along with all other minimum wage-workers, as well as tips.

One Fair Wage was involved in the signature gathering to ask voters in 2018 if Michigan should reach a $12 hourly minimum wage by 2022, which would be boosted for inflation in following years, and to phase out the elimination of Michigan’s tipping system.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers, with the Legislature then led by Republicans, unconstitutionally amended the proposal during the same legislative term that they adopted it, preventing it from being placed on the ballot.

The court’s ruling sets up a schedule where tipped employees, like bartenders and waitstaff, will earn a full minimum wage of about $15 hourly by Feb. 21, 2030. It gradually ends today’s system where tipped workers earn at least $3.98 each hour as long as tips at least make up the difference.

Some of Tuesday’s speakers included Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, Rep. Helena Scott (D-Detroit) and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein, one of the four justices to rule that the Legislature’s 2018 actions were unconstitutional.

Gilchrist described the efforts leading up to the July 31 ruling as being “about creating space and opportunity and a path to help the wealth of all people.”

“I am proud and appreciative for the values represented in this fight, and the energy that is brought to it every single day, and I want you to continue to keep that same kind of energy in finding ways to fight for working people,” Gilchrist said, using his remarks to promote this election cycle’s Democratic candidates. “The right kind of economic future is the economic future where everybody has the confidence to know that they can thrive, and not feel like they’ve been designed out of opportunity.”

Gilchrist did not directly say what he anticipates the Legislature’s next move to be, nor did he detail what the Governor’s stance is on addressing the ruling. As for Bernstein, although he said he could not speak about politics or cases, he said that a fair wage gives people their dignity and “sense of pride.”

When trying to interview people after Tuesday’s event, MIRS learned that multiple attendees were from Illinois, not Michigan.

For example, MIRS spoke with 37-year-old James Simmons and 36-year-old Antonio Jackson, who were based in Chicago and wanted to talk about the national effort to increase minimum wage standards.

Jackson has worked as a professional cleaner, a dishwasher and a warehouse employee moving furniture and food shipments. Meanwhile, Simmons was a dishwasher and a cook at a country-style restaurant in Texas, which served meatloaf and cornbread.

“This right now is booming. This is the best news you can hear right now, because people will start being able to live off of what they make,” Simmons said about how out-of-state folks perceive the ruling. “If you don’t have a car, and you gotta make it to work, those Uber rides (take) your whole check, so you are basically working to make your way to work.”

However, hours after the rally, MIRS spoke with Sam McClelland, who’s worked at a Bob Evans restaurant in Madison Heights for 38 years.

She explained her restaurant already experiences slow days when she’ll be sent home before her shift ends, and she noticed her tips starting to slow down right before the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a six-hour shift Tuesday, McClelland said she probably just made minimum wage – at the present-day $10.33 per-hour rate – based on her cash tips and sub-minimum wage “because we were slow.”

“They probably would want to kick everybody out then and have nobody working there…(have) all of the managers do all of the work – half of them do already,” she said about staff shortages and employers potentially paying higher wages.

But overall, McClelland said “if it happens, it happens,” because nowadays, “people think we get more than $3 an hour, so they don’t tip anyway. So overall, it’ll probably be the same as it is.”

Article courtesy MIRS News for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter

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