Tipped Workers Need One Fair Wage in St. Paul

As the cost of living continues to rise, one in four St. Paul workers currently makes less than $15/hr. The food-service industry is one of the top three employers of low wage workers in the metro area and many of them are tipped workers. We are the people that serve your food, mix your drinks, make your coffee, and clear your tables; we are the backbone of the restaurant industry and we deserve a living wage.

Right now, the restaurant industry employs six out of ten of the lowest wage jobs in our state, meanwhile the restaurant and food-service industry continues to grow. We want to keep our industry strong and support the workers that make St. Paul a desirable place to work and dine. We deserve the full minimum wage and our tips!

Fair wages not only prevent poverty and wage theft, they also help to protect workers from sexual harassment and discrimination: when workers are more dependent on tips, we're more vulnerable to the biases and, at times, predatory behaviors of customers. On a daily basis, workers in our industry are forced to weigh our dignity against our take-home pay as we face indecent behavior from customers and coworkers. A tip penalty makes this dynamic worse by forcing workers to depend more on tips and less on guaranteed wages for our income.

The Minnesota Restaurant Association claims that raising the minimum wage would hurt our industry. That's not true! The restaurant industry is the fastest growing industry in the country and has grown amidst raises to the state-wide minimum wage. They say that workers would lose tips, but tipping is norm in the highest-wage food-service industries in the country. They want to take workers tips to subsidize the cost of running their businesses. We say no!

We know that tipped workers, that ALL workers, need a $15 Minimum wage with #1FairWage. Tell the City Council: No carve-outs, No tip-penalty!