DC City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson announced Monday that he along with several other council members would introduce a bill during Tuesday’s session to repel Initiative 77, the city’s newly-passed $15 an hour minimum wage.
Council members Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, and Brandon Todd, D-Ward 4, announced they would back voiding the initiative, which DC voters approved by a 55 percent to 44 percent margin just last month.
“I don’t believe the law that Initiative 77 would put into place is good for our city, good for our restaurant industry or good for our workers,” Evans told a local ABC affiliate. Evans and others on the city council as well as Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser have long been critical of the initiative. The DC charter allows the council to overturn voter-passed initiatives by a simple majority vote, which the anti-Initiative 77 side appears to have.
DC’s Initiative 77 would raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, up from the current level of $12.50, and phasing out the $3.33 an hour minimum wage for tipped workers. The effort had been championed by organized labor and liberal groups but was heavily opposed by the city’s restaurant industry, including owners as well as tipped employees. The latter argued that a $15 minimum wage could leave them stuck at that rate rather than potentially earning more under the prior system.
Federal law allows business to pay workers as little as $2.13 an hour if those workers are in professions that customarily receive tips from patrons, such as waitresses or bartenders. The employer must pay up to at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour if the wages and tips don’t equal that, though. DC previously allowed tipped workers to be paid $3.33 an hour but required employers to make up the difference if that plus tips did equal the city’s minimum wage of $12.50 an hour.
Should the council go through with the move, it will be another stinging defeat for the higher minimum wage movement brought by Democratic officeholders at a major city. Last year Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh vetoed $15 an hour minimum wage legislation, up from the state minimum of $8.75, despite having campaigned for it the previous year. Pugh said she determined the increase would hurt the city’s economy.
