A report released Wednesday by the group One Fair Wage identified the corporate interests fueling the campaign against a referendum on Portland’s November ballot to increase the minimum wage and eliminate the sub-minimum wage.
One Fair Wage, a national campaign seeking to end the sub-minimum wage — sometimes known as the tipped credit — also highlighted the local restaurants that are voluntarily raising worker pay and benefits.
As Beacon previously reported, the practice of paying certain workers less than the minimum wage and making up the difference with tips has its roots in the period after the Civil War in which some industries “demanded the right to basically continue slavery with a $0 wage and tip,” especially in professions dominated by people of color, according to Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and president of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.
While Maine’s current minimum wage is $12.75 an hour, the minimum for tipped workers is $6.38. In Portland, the minimum wage is currently $13 an hour and $6.50 for tipped workers.
To address that discrepancy and raise wages for all workers, the Livable Portland Campaign — a project of the Maine Democratic Socialists of America — has introduced a ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage in Portland to $18 an hour by 2015 and eliminate the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, requiring them to be paid the full base wage with tips on top.
Question D — as the initiative will be called on the ballot — would also...
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