While restaurant owners have warned of impending industry collapse — or at least uncertain operating conditions — of swiftly strengthening the state’s minimum wage and paid sick leave requirements, their workers have welcomed recent developments that they say ensure economic stability.
That includes Detroit chef and industry veteran James Hawk, who called the prospect of a $12 an hour minimum wage for restaurant workers “life changing.”
The restaurant industry experienced potentially massive changes in recent weeks. On July 19, a state Court of Claims judge ruled that previous ballot initiatives to gradually raise the minimum wage, as well as strengthen paid sick leave requirements, would soon take effect after unconstitutional maneuvering in 2018 by the GOP-led legislature to water down the proposal. On July 29, Judge Douglas Shapiro granted the state’s request for a temporary stay on his earlier ruling, delaying implementation until Feb. 19, 2023.
ROC United, a restaurant workers organization, led a press conference on Aug. 5 to ensure Shapiro’s initial ruling is upheld.
“This is going to affect all of the restaurant workers here in Michigan and I’m really happy about that and am grateful and thankful for that,” Hawk said during the press conference. Hawk is also a plaintiff in the Court of Claims case initially brought by the organizers of the 2018 paid sick leave and minimum wage ballot initiatives.
Fellow restaurant worker Roquesha O’Neal agreed, saying the ruling —...
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