In response to the Changing times… page on Thursday March 29th and the Opinion piece by Dan McElroy of Hospitality Minnesota, we take more than a bit of issue. Mr. McElroy lays out his case for why one of Minnesota’s largest trade associations, need relief in workers’ wages so that they can have better financial outcomes.
First McElroy begins with the impact of the Great Recession on hospitality and how customers made choices between paying for groceries or dining out, resulting in fewer tips for servers. Then Mr. McElroy acknowledges that the economy is recovering, goes on about the industries challenges and his members’ uncertainty of the future with the rising price of food, utilities, insurance, and labor; all costs of doing business.
Today, allow us to tell you something about the leisure & hospitality industry in Minnesota. Hospitality Minnesota (the industry) according to its own numbers is a 10.5 billion dollar industry and responsible for 15% of Minnesota’s tax revenues. We want this industry to be healthy because we work in it, and by all the numbers it is doing very well, increasing from 14,000 establishments in 2009 to nearly 14,400 in 2011 and adding 23,000 jobs in the same period.
So why has Mr. McElroy come to the Minnesota Legislature this session with Senate File 1755? The proposed legislation includes a series of licensing fee adjustments that could have a serious impact on food safety and other conditions in Minnesota, questionable tax credits on equipment, and McElroy’s “Main Street Restaurant Wage.” The bill’s name suggests something that it isn’t; just as he uses the example of the family run small business in greater Minnesota to make his point. Many of the Employers who would benefit from this bill are owners and operators of multi-million dollar businesses. The originally titled bill called the Restaurant Recovery Act, was recently stricken in a Senate committee.
The” Main Street” wage would call for a permanent freeze of the current minimum wage for servers in Minnesota. McElroy’s new scheme allows for tips to become wages, which they are not. This is simply another back door approach to tip penalty, accomplishing what the industry has tried to do but failed at many times before.
The last minimum wage raise was in 2009 with no further increase in sight. In fact, the Minimum Wage remains the constant and reliable cost of a restaurants business plan by only shifting upwards occasionally, making it a pretty reliable factor when shaping your future business plan.
McElroy served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and has supported the more traditionally referred to “Tip Penalty”. McElroy also refers to politicians’ tainted conversations and outrageous claims about $100,000 servers. Well, that statement and conversation started at one of his member’s establishment in St. Paul and rolled out of the mouth of their own gubernatorial endorsed candidate Tom Emmer.
An industry chasing the cheapest part of its workforce to the bottom because of the price of poultry is wrong. Someone said, “A chicken in every pot.” We all want economic assurances for our families, our personal finances, or just the price of GAS; but to try build that business plan off the working peoples backs is not right.