PORTLAND, Maine - Maine Restaurant workers today highlighted another aspect of the minimum wage increase on this fall's ballot: In addition to raising the minimum to $12 an hour over a period of years, the measure will eliminate the lower wage paid to "tipped employees."
Heather McIntosh has worked in Portland's restaurant industry for 20 years. "We are the human capital," she said at a news conference in Portland. "We are the ones driving profits. We're the faces of the restaurant and we deserve one fair wage."
Other speakers pointed out that seven states already have the same minimum wage for tipped workers as others. They say in six of those states, restaurants are projected to have higher-than-average growth.
The Maine Restaurant Association is among entities that want the Legislature to place on the ballot an alternative that would raise the minimum wage only to $10 an hour, rather than $12, and exclude tipped workers from any increase.
So far, the Democratic-controlled House has blocked any such move.
