The current minimum wage for most hourly workers in the District of Columbia is $13.25, which is set to increase to $15 come 2020. Tipped workers, however, receive a fraction of that amount per hour.  As of July 1, 2018, tipped workers (which can include servers, valets, and bartenders) receive $3.89 per hour, with an anticipated increase to $5.00 by 2020. The justification for this low hourly wage is the understanding that, in the case that an employee is unable to meet DC’s minimum wage with their tips, the employer will cover the difference. Therefore, a tipped worker who is unable to make $13.25 per hour in tips will have their wage supplemented by their employer under the Fair Shot Minimum Wage Amendment Act of 2016. However, restaurants in the DC area have been under fire for charges of wage theft, putting into question workers’ lived experience of this law.

Research done by the United States Department of Labor reveals that, nationally, the US food service industry has had higher rates of wage violation than any other low wage industry since 2008. In fiscal year 2018 alone, over 41,000 food service workers reported nearly $43 million in thefted wages.

Research done in 2011 by the Washington, DC chapter of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (also known as ROC), a non-profit based in Manhattan whose stated mission is to “improve wages and working conditions for the nation’s restaurant workforce.”, gives us a local perspective on wage violations in the restaurant industry. Following a year’s worth of research, ROC’s DC chapter released a 76 page report on DC’s restaurant industry. Table 7 (which can be found on page 25) of the report reveals that 33.5% of restaurant workers in DC report having experienced overtime wage violations and 11.4% report having experienced minimum wage violations.

As further detailed  in ROC’s report:

• 11.4% of the workers spoken with reported earning less than $8.25 per hour, which violated DC’s 2011 minimum wage laws
  
• Only 18.5% of tipped workers were able to correctly recall the correct minimum wage and only 9.7% knew the amount of the tipped minimum wage, even though it is the employer’s responsibility to post bilingual signs in the workplace detailing this information

A briefer report published by the Economic Policy Institute further reveals that:

• Tipped workers in DC are largely people of color (70% of the tipped workforce while only 55% of the general workforce)
• The median annual wage for servers and bartenders in DC is $22,763.
• 13.7% of tipped workers live below the poverty line

Of course, given the unsavory conditions tipped workers were experiencing in the restaurant industry, movement to make change was inevitable.

In the spring of 2018, a campaign promoting Initiative 77 began. Initiative 77 was a ballot initiative (meaning that an adequate number of registered voters signed a petition to get a statute or amendment voted on publicly) that would rework DC’s minimum wage laws for tipped workers. Under Initiative 77, the tipped minimum wage would increase each year so that, by 2026, tipped workers would be making $15 an hour, the same as other workers in DC receiving an hourly wage. It seems that, in the frenzied coverage of the Initiative, many people assumed that tipped workers would begin receiving the minimum wage immediately, not understanding that employers would have 8 years to pay their employees the eventual $15 minimum wage.

The Washington, DC chapter of ROC became the primary driving force in support of Initiative 77 in DC. Faced with opposition from, both, restaurant owners and tipped workers themselves, Initiative 77 became one of the most discussed and controversial political topics in DC during the 2018 local election season. The proposal of Initiative 77 left the city cleaved into two camps; those in support of the initiative and those against it. A cursory glance through a DC area resident’s Facebook or Twitter feed from that period of time would very likely contain at least one charged debate over the initiative.  

Alongside the business owners and tipped workers opposing Initiative 77, Mayor Muriel Bowser and various members of the DC Council publicly opposed the Initiative as well. It must be stated, however, that many of the politicians in opposition to Initiative 77 have, at various points, received money from restaurants for their campaigns.

After being passed by voters by a more than 10% margin, Initiative 77 was repealed by eight members of the DC Council on Oct. 2nd, 2018.

I find myself clearly seeing the concerns raised by both parties regarding the pros and cons of Initiative 77; working as a cashier in an independent restaurant, I reap the benefits of the current minimum wage as well as tips. As a cashier, my job is far less complex than that of a server, however, I have far more security and ease regarding my wage. This level of security regarding pay is something I desire for each of my fellow restaurant workers, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet. As stated by the anonymous author of this Vox article “Living on tips does not guarantee me a sufficient income or economic security. Tipped workers experience a poverty rate nearly twice that of other workers. Currently, the median hourly wage for servers in DC is only $11.89… Relying on customer tips results in unpredictable income and makes workers more vulnerable to being sexually harassed or discriminated against by the very customers on whose tips we depend.”

This said, my very strong relationship with my employer in the restaurant I work in makes me consider concerns raised by restaurant owners about keeping their establishments open as well. While I don’t want to disregard the reality of greed our culture intentionally cultivates in each of us, I would like to believe that most business owners would choose to give generously to their employees if the resources were available.

Compass Coffee, a local coffee shop with a number of locations throughout DC, pays its starting baristas $13.25 an hour, and, once they’re passed the apprenticeship stage, they go on to receive a 25¢ raise. This pay is received alongside tips, which, based on information in this article from the dcist, averages around $5.71 an hour.

More prominently, in the same article, the author discusses changes Dolcezza Gelato has had to make to their payment structure in order, according to their owner, to continue to do business in DC. Now categorizing their hourly employees as tipped workers, Dolcezza’s baristas receive $10.50 an hour while the company’s gelato scoopers make $9.75 an hour, these wages being supplemented by tips.  

Robb Duncan is reported as saying “It totally, totally sucks. If I could pay my employees twice the minimum wage and give them health benefits, I would do it in two seconds. But for any small business, especially in D.C. right now, one needs to make adjustments. We’re doing what we feel is necessary to stay strong in D.C.”

Sips of Seattle, a family owned coffee shop located in downtown DC, shut down its business on on the 14th of December due to increases in rent, after 22 years of being a favorite of many DC residents. One of the co-owners of Sips of Seattle has a Spanish last name; Escobar. While I do not know the racial or ethnic origins of this particular business owner, I would like to use this information to highlight the reality that the businesses that are most vulnerable to increases of rents and wages are those owned by people of color. Even though Initiative 77 hasn’t passed, I’d be concerned about the ability of business owners of color to stay afloat amidst rising rent and labor costs.

Rents for businesses are based upon the square feet of the establishment multiplied by a dollar amount that averages somewhere between $50 – $80. The annual rent of a space of 800 square foot, priced at $55 per square foot, would be $44,000 a year, requiring monthly payments of $3,666 to maintain usage of the space.

Ultimately, I find myself disappointed by this entire debate. When this issue over whether a minimum wage or a lowered tipped wage is best for DC’s restaurants is boiled down, we are, essentially, choosing one group of people’s livelihoods over another. Another point of contention for me is the responsibility of this decision placed into the hands of DC residents, many of whom have never worked in restaurants and know little-to-nothing about the industry. In an act of compromise, Mary Cheh, Councilmember of Ward 3, suggests that the the increase in tipped servers’ minimum wage take place over a 15 year period; increasing the tipped minimum wage by 66¢ per year as a way to safely gauge any burdens the increased wage would bring upon restaurant owners.

While I am appreciative of Councilmember Cheh’s attempt to consider the needs of all parties involved, I believe that this compromise fails to consider the reality of rising rents, nor does it center the experiences/demands of restaurant workers. The issue of Initiative 77 ties into much larger issues regarding affordable housing and living wages that are affecting every major city across the country.

In the long run, tipped workers on both sides of the Initiative and restaurant workers must understand that if they’re going to remain in a city with increasingly high rent prices, than they’d do well to band together with organizers working on affordable housing initiatives in their neighborhoods. Some organizations working on affordable housing campaigns across the city are Empower DC, One DC, and Keep DC 4 Me. Alongside participating in political action in the city, tipped workers should also rally together to ensure their employers comply with DC’s minimum wage laws.  As individuals, tipped workers can also contact the District’s Restaurant Opportunities Center if they have questions about their rights or join them on the third Thursday of every month for their Legal Clinic for Restaurant Workers.

Recently, new energy has begun to surge around Initiative 77; upset with the DC Council’s decision to repeal the Initiative, a DC bartender filed a lawsuit intending to delay the execution of the proposed repeal. Senior pastor of DC’s Plymouth United Church of Christ, Rev. Graylan Hagler, a supporter of this recent push, is reported to say “The restaurant industry filed a petition challenge at the eleventh hour. It’s their latest effort to thwart the democratic process. We will fight this delaying tactic in court, and will prevail in the end. We are not the kind of people to give up on D.C. workers who need a raise.”

Shockingly, on December 12th, DC judge Neal E. Kravitz ruled that efforts to place Initiative 77 on the spring ballot were invalid as a result of a mishap on the DC government’s part. As writer Gabe Hiatt states in the Eater article “Despite the work of petitioners to gather more than 25,000 signatures in a week, judge Neal E. Kravitz cited a procedural mistake by the D.C. Board of Elections… The elections board did not post public notice for a hearing on the referendum far enough in advance, Kravitz found, dooming the signature-gathering process from the start.” Meaning, essentially, that due to a procedural error on the part of the DC Board of Elections, the petitioners’ work was futile from the start.  

We shall see how pro-77 organizers will rally against Judge Kravitz’s ruling, however, the debate of whether Initiative 77, and the larger socio-economic contexts surrounding the debate, is far from over.