On January 26, less than a month before a February 19 increase in the minimum wage was set to take effect for tens of thousands of Michigan workers, the Michigan Appeals Court blocked the increase by upholding a 2018 “adopt and amend” maneuver of the state legislature, then under Republican control.
This was an effort by the Republicans to prevent two ballot propositions from being voted on in a statewide referendum. The first was to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by January 1, 2022, as well as eliminate the lower minimum wage for tipped workers. The second was to require employers with at least 10 employees to offer at least seven paid sick days per year to these workers (with nine days for larger employers).
Supporters of these two ballot propositions, backed by unions and anti-poverty groups, had succeeded in collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures to place the two measures on the November 6, 2018 ballot. They were expected to pass by overwhelming margins, and the Democratic Party supported the ballot drive as well, expecting to benefit from the increased voter turnout.
To forestall this outcome, the Republican-controlled legislature passed the language of the two petitions as laws (“adopt”). After Election Day passed, they then gutted both measures, pushing back the minimum wage increase from 2022 to 2030, blocking any change in the status of tipped workers, and exempting all employers with fewer than 50 workers from the sick-leave requirement (“amend”).
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