Bill would save jobs, restaurants
The Post’s February 25th editorial, “Lousy Service,” stated that lawmakers “reared their ugly heads” regarding tipped employees. However, even the Post admits that tipped workers are, and always have been, treated differently under minimum wage laws. The reason: tipped workers make the greatest portion of their income from tips, not wages.
The Post seeks merely to incite anger without acknowledging facts. Our legislative intent is to keep existing restaurants in business so that the wait staff, busboys, dishwashers and cooks will all still have a place to work.
HB 258, besides setting tipped employee wages at the federal minimum wage level, also requires restaurants to pay their tipped wait staff at least $7.05 per hour if tips plus minimum wage are below $7.05 per hour. The Post also neglects to report that the dishwashers, cooks and busboys are being harmed by the forced wage hike for tipped employees. Finally, HB258 will be amended so that tipped servers will NOT receive a wage decrease but will remain at their current minimum wage with the “wage escalator” simply being removed since it was not meant to apply to tipped employees in the first place. That will be a fix that will be fair to all.
Restaurants are experiencing rising labor costs and decreases in customer volume. This has caused many restaurants to cut shifts, lay-off non tipped workers and even permanently close their doors. House Bill 258 seeks to save the restaurant industry and everyone who works in it.
Representative Tim Jones
Representative Dwight Scharnhorst
Please, as a resident of Missouri I am begging you people to keep out of this situation. All you part time legislators can do is screw things up for everybody when you pass these half-baked laws that have huge unintended consequences that you people are not intelligent enough to forsee. Leave us alone!!!!
Tipped workers have never honestly reported their tips since they are taxed on what they make. As a one time restaurant owner I can pretty much guarantee that no one who receives cash tips reports all of them. My employees seldom reported more than 30 dollars a week in tips and there was no way for me to prove differently as it was all cash. The only way I had to try and report honestly was through credit card receipts. The government doesn’t come after the tipped employee if tips aren’t reported, they come after the restaurant owner. This is partly why I no longer own a restaurant or employ the 15 people I employed. Great system isn’t it.
I think that government mandated wages are at odds with individual rights. If a kid (or anyone) wants to work for $1/hour, so what? It’s his biz. He can decide the value of the arrangement. Maybe that $1 comes with nice benefits - like flex hours, training, growth, security. We need a return to freedom; maybe after this mess comes crashing down, there’ll be some who remember what freedom was.
The minimum wage referendum passed by a nearly 80% margin. Yet, the two Reps write “it was not meant to apply to tipped employees in the first place”.
As a voter, I find it insulting that they don’t think we know how we are voting. Yes, I meant this to apply to tipped employees. To all employees.
Once again, we have paternalistic legislators overturning the wish of the voters as “they know better”.
Our Dearest Timothy and Dwight,
You obviously only care about the Restaurant owners and Restaurant Association of Missouri. Do you not have any other more pressing issues going on right now! Thank God for term limits unless you State Rep’s reverse that law from the voters wishes. Just like you did concealed weapons, contribution limits, gambling, etc.
Get with a program and get that Bill passed that will no longer tolerate Mo. Politicians from leaving office one day and starting the next day as a lobbyist. You remember Rod Jetton don’t you. Why not waste some energy on Alan Icet(R) Wildwood who has been chosen to decide how are stimulus money would be spent. Alan knows what is best for all of us, even the 765,000 uninsured in this state. Or the mentally ill citizens that are not covered by medicare. You and your kind love to cut programs of the most needest to put forth your narrow minded selfish desires to control everything. I would never vote for either one of you! You are lucky that I do not live in your districts or I would make it a personal mission to expose you losers for what you are.
Your part time job with full time benefits is soo cushy isn’t it!
I was a server in a fine dining establishment during the late 1990’s. I made $2.15 an hour plus tips. During the 1990’s the economy was prospering under Clinton and business was good. Thus I made pretty decent money on the weekends. In today’s economy with no tips how are these servers to survive without getting a fair minimum wage. Oh yeah, silly us, we forgot that when we voted for the minimum wage increase, it was not meant to include them. Wasting your time on insuring what a server can make as tips seems so miniscule to what is going on right now in our state.
suzyjax,
You are right on! Another example of our wonderful state Rep’s un-doing what the voters wanted.
Eureka and Valley Park need to wake up. I checked you guys out and you cannot be termed out anytime soon. Too Bad!
Wow! 2 republic Reps. telling us what we REALLY voted for!
You 2 just keep your noses in Jeff City and work on your pro-fetus legislation.
Yeah, you’re worried about the busboys, cooks, and dishwashers. You can’t even lie very good.