BREAKING: FLA on track to SLASH minimum wage from $4.65 to **$2.13** for tipped-income workers

[nashville_brook]

Apologies if this has already been posted. I feel very strongly about this.

Waitressing is the hardest work I've ever done, and for every $100 night I had 3 nights that my hourly wage was the lion's share of my earning. But understand, this bill affect all tipped-income workers including salon, valet and car wash workers, whose tipping etiquette doesn't come close to dictating 15-20% on the dollar.

Speaking of tipping etiquette, how could it not evolve upwards to cover this loss, shifting cost to the consumer as well as the worker. For the so-called fiscal conservatives proposing this -- what sense does it make to create an inflationary spiral on the consumer end of the economy, which is supposedly our last best hope for easing out of the Great Recession.

It's worth mentioning that we, the normal people of the 99%, wear both the hats of consumer and worker, so we're getting hit twice here, and all indications are that this is an just opening shot in a full-spectrum class war being fought by Rick Scott against working Floridians.

Florida is also debating a bill to provide huge tax cuts to any NON-UNIONIZED companies moving to Florida. The message: Florida lawmakers are selling off Floridians as slave labor to all comers.



(please leave a comment at the story on the Orlando Sentinel link below and let Floridians know you support them. A group of workers' rights organizations and Occupy Orlando are protesting in front of The Outback Steakhouse on Sand Lake Road near the Florida Mall at 2pm tomorrow -- we are taking this very seriously and we need your help. We need this to go beyond Florida, b/c this sort of ALEC legislation is cropping up everywhere. Please also spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, etc.)


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-florida-tipped-minimum-wage-20120215,0,397929.story


Senate panel OKs slashing hourly pay for servers, bartenders, others
By Sandra Pedicini, Orlando Sentinel
6:03 p.m. EST, February 16, 2012

(snip)

The bill (SB 2106), approved by a Senate committee Thursday, would allow restaurants and other employers to pay their staffs the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour instead of Florida's minimum of $4.65. To qualify, companies would have to guarantee that employees would make at least $9.98 an hour, when tips are included.

Opponents say it would cut the pay for people like Charles Spencer, who's working his way through school by waiting tables at Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant in Downtown Disney. He said his wage of $11 to $12 an hour pays the bills — but barely.

"It's a lot of canned vegetables and grilled chicken and ramen noodles," said Spencer, 25, adding, "I was rather appalled by the fact they're going to try to cut a wage standard in this economy."

(snip)

"That base pay is actually really important," said Wolford, 39, whose budget is so tight she cannot afford health insurance.

[valerief]

1. Florida is a cesspool. It should be ashamed of itself. nt

[geomon666]

14. +100 and I live here n/;t

[valerief]

32. Yeah, there are some good people in Florida, just not nearly enough. nt

[nashville_brook]

52. FLA is a solid majority Dem state demographically.

[valerief]

57. That's how Rick Scott got elected? nt

[nashville_brook]

59. districts have been drawn to make it impossible for the majority to be represented

that's why the people amended the constitution for Fair Districts in 2010, and with the GOP in control of the process, it's made it worse.

they've conducted themselves so crookedly that they're having to pass a bill that gives them "absolute privilege" in any civil suit or legal proceeding -- bill that would shield legislators and their staffs from ever being required to testify or produce public records when they get sued.

The bill emerged for the first time Wednesday, the sixth week of the nine-week lawmaking session and less than one week after the Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit challenging its redistricting maps.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-civil-immunity-for-lawmakers-20120216,0,1011957.story

[DirkGently]

62. By two points. Speak not of what you know not, please.

[SwampG8r]

72. space coast?me too

out by the pineda causeway
i like the no tips i am going to use it

[valerief]

77. That's all they needed to steal. nt

[DirkGently]

78. Other states have similar problems. Massachusetts, for example, pays only $2.63 to tipped workers.

[valerief]

84. That's criminal! Damn rethuglican cesspool. nt

[SwampG8r]

73. a florida democrat is likely to vote

republican
the most dem counties are in the northern part of the state but they only register that way
they vote red

[lonestarnot]

15. Not any worse than Arizona.

[valerief]

30. Arizona is a double turd cesspool. nt

[DirkGently]

63. And Massachusetts replaced a Kennedy with a Teabagger. Pointless to state bash.

[valerief]

76. You won't get any arguments from me about Massachusetts! nt

[DirkGently]

79. This is a nationwide push to put the screws to workers, women, & unions.

We can all do much better.

[valerief]

83. I know. I get so discouraged. nt

[RockaFowler]

2. Just wonderful

I hate pRick Scott. I hate the Repukes in Tallahassee. This is just getting worse and worse for those of us living here. Time to vote them all out and hopefully we can get pRick impeached.

PS - I hate the word, HATE. It's the only word I can think of at this time.

[nashville_brook]

29. we need more progressives engaged at the state level -- it's where the action is.

[monmouth]

3. Hopefully this will go the way of privatizing the prisons. Absolutely awful..n/t

[TheMadMonk]

34. Oh you mean like where private prison operators are offering...

...to buy up government owned prisons. But of course only if the govenment guarantees an occupancy rate of 90%.

Until AMERICANS in general get over the fucking idea, that the best way to get ahead is to PUSH (seemingly preferably with violence) others behind, NOTHING will change.

[nashville_brook]

50. Rick Scott is going to push thru private prisons by executive order.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/rick-scott-moves-keep-prison-privatization-alive

heard the story on local npr this morning, they had a clip of Scott talking to reporters, and he sounded desperate, i imagine b/c he promised privatization to his backers, and can't deliver.

[orpupilofnature57]

4. The state that gave us Shrub.

[nashville_brook]

11. the Supreme Court gave you Bush. If the votes had been counted, we elected Gore.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html

Gore won even if one doesn’t count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls.

Gore won even if there’s no adjustment for George W. Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida’s voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide. [For more details on studies of the election, see Consortiumnews.com stories of May 12, June 2 and July 16.]

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Florida will rip itself from the other 48 states so that it

can join the other banana republics further down south.

That's the plan.

[jsmirman]

6. Honestly

I don't know what else to say.

[Kaleko]

41. Seconded.

[RebelOne]

7. Yes, I did some waitress work for a short period of time.

An ex-boyfriend had a seafood restaurant in Miami and one of his waitresses quit and I helped out for a few weeks until he hired someone else. That is something I would never want to make a career. I have a very high respect for servers as they have to put up with a lot of shit from customers. And I was lucky to make $50 a day. Fortunately, I was not in dire need of money.

[lib2DaBone]

8. Republicans are also looking to strip rail & transportation workers of minimum wage....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/12/house-transportation-bill-rail-drivers_n_1271644.html


A little-noted provision in the House Republicans' controversial energy and transportation bill would strip several thousand workers within the rail-industry of their federal minimum-wage and overtime protections, potentially making low-wage jobs pay even less.


Listed in the bill under the heading "Technical Correction," provision 6602 would exempt several companies who transport rail workers from their obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the 1938 law that guarantees basic worker right

The House's transportation committee, which is chaired by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) and approved the bill, did not return a request for comment from The Huffington Post made late Friday. Officials at several of the companies that could potentially benefit from the change -- including Professional Transportation, Inc., RailCrew Express and Coach America -- could not be reached.

[TheWraith]

9. The irony is, this penalizes those who provide better service and get more tips.

To qualify, companies would have to guarantee that employees would make at least $9.98 an hour, when tips are included.

Example: you have one person who provides bad service, and one who provides good service. The bad service earns $6 an hour in tips. Added to the old minimum wage, that makes $10.65 an hour. The good service earns $12 an hour in tips, which when added to the old minimum wage results in $16.65 an hour.

Now with the new minimum, the person who provides bad service would still make $6 in tips, and still be required to make at least $9.98, losing 67 cents an hour, or $25 per 40 hour week. The person providing good service would still make $12 from tips, but their minimum wage would be slashed to $2.13, making their total $14.13 per hour, a loss of $2.52 an hour, or more than $100 a week.

[joshcryer]

13. Nice numbers, that's really eye opening, they're punishing the good servers for sure.

[TheWraith]

20. The numbers are theoretical, but the premise is basically accurate.

The only question is where exactly the lines would fall. It's possible tips would be high enough that the good server and the bad server would both lose the same amount of pay, but if the tipping is anything less than $10 an hour for bad service, then this would essentially be subsidizing the bad service.

[joshcryer]

44. There's something in mathematics or economics that talks about this though.

I mean, when you said it, I immediately figured it was correct, but putting some numbers out there gives it away. So props for giving a fair example that shows it. There are probably examples where it's a wash, too, but I suspect they're marginal at best.

[SwampG8r]

43. the restaurant industry is predicated on

punishing the individual who performs well
sadly but truely it is
a cook who can get more done is given less time to do it in and less productive and cheaper people get more hours as more are needed to complete a task
with front of the house people the idea is to even the shifts so everyone makes the relatively same
this means a well performing server will get fewer shifts as they likely will earn more in less time
while poorer performing servers will get more shifts to allow them to earn more
and in both cases there will be resentment from coworkers directed at productive workers as they "make us all look bad"
i have done this since 1977 and its always the same
i once worked for red lobster in my youth
i recieved many raises but the amount of my paycheck never changed
i just got fewer hours for more money until i eventually became a part time employee and lost all benefits
then came a day they could not justify a part time employee for that amount
see how it works?

[nashville_brook]

48. what's amazing is that the people who patronize restaurants either don't know or don't care

about any of this -- and it directly affects how they're treated and what they're eating.

[SwampG8r]

71. i put it all on the owners

whether corporate or mom and pop
restaurant workers are exempt from more labor laws than they are eligible for

[nashville_brook]

21. they're acutally using the "base rate" argument to say workers won't "feel" it.

but any way you slice it it's reducing income for working poor families.

[Kellerfeller]

47. I hadn't thought of it that way

but you are exactly right.

Thanks.

[Sgent]

82. If I was still managing restaurants

and had that type of disparity between servers, I would look very hard at what was going on.

I very well may have fired the one earning $6 / hr in tips. This of course depends on other factors as well -- what sections and shifts, etc.

[virgogal]

10. It's only about $2.70 in very liberal MA.,with a much higher cost of living.

[jsmirman]

18. They are treated like crap

everywhere.

And it is definitely not right. People who don't respect their servers and tip accordingly lack some essential spark of humanity. These are not cushy jobs.

[Remember Me]

22. Well said

Really terrible news, IMO. Ridiculous.

[limpyhobbler]

12. that's sick. nt

[marlakay]

16. Doesn't federal law over ride that? Nt

[Fla_Democrat]

70. Isn't federal law worse?

The bill (SB 2106), approved by a Senate committee Thursday, would allow restaurants and other employers to pay their staffs the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour instead of Florida's minimum of $4.65.


Or, did I read that wrong?

[sarcasmo]

17. USA! USA! USA!

[benld74]

19. WTF?~?~?~?~?~

[Initech]

23. I make $12 an hour - it sucks.

[nashville_brook]

25. another aspect is that few of these jobs have benefits. no sick days, no healthcare, no vacation...

just hours on the schedule.

[Initech]

28. Yup - I get absolutely none of those benefits.

It's just hours I'm on the schedule. I've been desperately looking for a way out and I'm pretty close I think.

[nashville_brook]

33. i'm sending my best wishes and vibes that you find that way out :)

[Sabriel]

24. I made $2/hour as a waitress...IN 1984!!!!

Seriously? They're rolling back to when I was in high school and college?

Disgusting.

It's violence against women and children, pure and simple.

[nashville_brook]

26. you are correct -- this hits women and children disproportionately.

[got root]

27. GOP in NH want to repeal Lunch Break Law

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/310149/lunch-breaks-on-the-chopping-block

what century are we living in?

[nashville_brook]

56. in the ALEC century...the Citizens United century...

[RainDog]

31. wtf?

nickled and dimed.

[RegieRocker]

35. If I lived and ate out in Florida I would be very wary what was in my food if it passes.

[nashville_brook]

37. good point.

[Kingofalldems]

36. The 1% owns Florida lock, stock and barrel

They get elected on hot button issues while hiding their true agenda.

[pnwest]

38. i did the restaurant thing in Indiana and Arizona for

18 years, and in all that time the tipped wage went all the way from $2.01 to $2.12. Plus, you have to claim your tips so that you could be taxed on that income. That tax came out of the $2.12/hour paycheck. So, if you had a really good week tip-wise, the taxes would eat up the whole check and you would literally get a zero dollar paycheck! Honestly, it became a source of pride between us killer servers to get a zero dollar check, cause it meant you kicked ass in tips that week.

The worse downside of such shitty pay, is that restaurant owners would use us "cheap labor" to do hours' worth of "side work" which included dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms...all for $2.12 an hour. THAT'S the really shitty part of the whole thing.

But, on a humorous side-note, there was a bar in the neighborhood in Scottsdale who gave servers from all the local restaurants a free beer if they brought in a zero paycheck to staple onto the ceiling...at least it was good for something!

[salin]

39. I made more than that in VA in the mid eighties.

This only makes sense in high volume, high priced venues where the tip is automatic. Is there a reason to assume that the level of tips have raised at levels to surpass the increases of the cost of living for those working in most over the last thirty years?

Does anyone believe that restaurant owners will cut their costs by the amount that wages were cut? If not the only benefit of such a move is to the owners of restaurants.

Who, again, is waging a class war?

[Justice wanted]

40. AMAZInG anything to keep the working poor down...

[quakerboy]

42. So all restaurants will be dropping their prices, right?

Since it will cost half as much to hire workers, food, beverage, etc will be dropping in cost significantly. Its the free market, after all!

The whole "you earn tips, so you don't need to be paid as much" is bunk. The federal minimum wage should be the absolute minimum wage. Then we need to do away with Salary.

[nashville_brook]

46. don't get me started on the salary issue.

[Katashi_itto]

45. In Greece Min wage got cut 22% why did anyone thing it wouldnt happen here?

[avote foryou]

49. they always go for the little guy/gal

Never mind the 1%, get those waitresses! They are a threat to America!

[nashville_brook]

51. they go after us (the little ones) b/c no one has our back.

[DonCoquixote]

53. Florida

The History of Florida predates the History of the Nation. St. Augustine was already old when Plymouth Rock was just being settled. However, it was never hospitable, as disease, gators, humidity, and Native Americans helped prevent large scale settlements. hat this means is that that only two types of people put up settlements: those who were desperate, and those who were greedy. Sad to say, that is still the main pattern: people who move here either escaped the Rust Belt economy drying up, or come down here thnking they can carve an Empire from the swamp. When you put that mix together, you have a bunch of the greedier, nastier people in the Nation who come down here ready to feast on the more desperate people in the nation, to say nothing of the immigrants.

The fact that this is the South makes it worse, and please, let no one tell you Florida is NOT part of Dixie. Here the rich are treated as virtuous, and the migrants live in the same buildings that served as slave cabins back in the day.

There are some things I love here, and yes, I like some aspects of Dixie, especially the slower pace. However, I get really tired of dealing with the fact that the very worst in people is celebrated here. It is schizophrenic, how in one booth you can have someone who is a refugee from the Rust Belt, who knows why the right wing sucks, then you can have a Canadian "tourist" (that lives here more than half the year to avoid taxes to either us or Ottawa) yell about how great it is that the Yanks did not get so left wing, like back home, and then have the Cuban in the back row applaud. You have people celebrate the Klan here, but on the other hand, those who are leftwing tend to be very very vocal, as they know that they have nothing to lose. Now you see why Alan Grayson was elected here.

[nashville_brook]

54. this is the best, most informed comment on Florida I've seen casually on the internets...

you nailed it.

[DonCoquixote]

67. Thanks

Just tried to be honest. I do not hate Florida, but I do get tired of BS that is accepted here.

[Lost-in-FL]

58. "...I get really tired of dealing with the fact that the very worst in people is celebrated here."

[Hosnon]

55. I'm conflicted about this.

I should start by saying I always tip at least 20% (I usually do 20% and then round up to the next whole dollar).

There are two choices:

(1) Include the tip in the price of the meal and receive the regular minimum wage (or market wage); or
(2) Do not include the tip but receive a smaller-than-regular minimum wage (or market wage).

Every server I have ever asked prefers (2) over (1). Obviously, I'm open to counter-examples as my experience is, well, just my experience.

Ultimately, however, it is the employers who are screwing the servers. They get to offer their customers reduced meal prices because the servers' wages are not built into the meal prices, but don't have to make up the difference themselves (they push it off on the customer and act like they are on their servers' side by blaming bad tippers).

[fascisthunter]

60. The GOP... party for Sociopaths

coockoo, coockoo!

[DirkGently]

61. Way to kick workers & consumers in the teeth, restaurants.

[SomethingFishy]

64. You know what really irks me?

The people who make these decisions are the WORST TIPPERS.

Some people still seem to think that if you are a "good" server you will make more tips. That may be true with certain customers, but people who don't work for a living, people who have never had to survive off of tips, people who look down on "servers" tip shitty no matter how good the service.

There used to be a website that had a "Shitty Tipper Database" that listed the worst tippers. Of course it was chock full of rich Republicans.

[nashville_brook]

65. ^^ what you said!

[Honeycombe8]

68. By legislation? Or vote? How can they do that when Fed sets min. wage?

I don't understand how this works. I thought the fed. set the min. wage.

If this is going to be done by legislation, I guess the legislature is Republican?

This is awful. Just awful. I really don't like what's going on in this country.

[Sgent]

80. The federal minimum wage

for tipped employees is around $2 / hr

[Honeycombe8]

85. Oh, I see. I thought the approx $6 min. wage was for everything. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

69. States that require restaurants to pay real minimum wage

do not have higher meal prices than states with the "tip credit."

That's been my observation traveling around the country.

[fujiyama]

74. $2? Wow, well looks like you can basically get away paying slave wages in FL?

That's fucked up. I honestly can't understand the mentality of an employer that would pay that low even if it's the minimum wage.

[madinmaryland]

81. The whole tipping thing just seems to be to be a slap in the face of serving staff.

Why the restaurant industry just can't pay their wait staff a fair wage is beyond me. Making them rely on the whims of clientele that can be extremely fickle is just fucked up.

I would much rather my dinner cost 20-25% more and not have to deal with the dance for the tip and also have the employees be paid a fair wage without having to beg for money from the patrons of the restaurant.

Just pisses me off to see people used in this way.