Arizona will likely have competing ballot measures affecting tips and minimum wage for workers. One group is suing the other for trying to mislead voters.
The so-called “Tipped Workers Protection Act” was added to the ballot this year by Republicans in the state Legislature. It would allow employers to pay their employees 25% less than the minimum wage if they can prove the worker would be making the minimum wage plus $2 including tips.
Attorney Jim Barton is suing the state of Arizona and argues that the “Tipped Worker Protection Act” title is a lie.
“So now, there’s a sub-minimum wage and it’s three dollars low, right. This creates a super sub-minimum wage,” he said at a press conference Friday.
Barton represents a citizen-led initiative called “Raise the Wage Arizona," which aims to get a measure on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour - with tips on top.
Arizona’s current minimum wage is $14.35 an hour.
The group claims that legislative Republicans’ intended to make voters think they’re approving increased wages for tipped workers, when they’re really doing the opposite.
“If an employee works, e.g., 80 hours in a pay period and earns $160.00 in tips during that pay period, the employer will assume … it may pay the employee $11.35 per hour in wages, or $908.00 total, so that the employee’s total compensation is $1068.00; however, this amounts to only $13.35 per hour,” Barton states in the complaint filing.
“It’s the same thing they do in every state where the workers try to raise wages. They say, ‘no, no you cannot raise wages. We want to take your wages away, not give you more,’” Raise the Wage Arizona President and Co-Founder Saru Jayaraman said.
Jayaraman said the bill is being pushed by the Arizona Restaurant Association - which is in support of the bill along with the Arizona Beverage Association - to pay their workers less.
She said tipping has roots in post-Civil War racism when formerly enslaved people could be hired exploitatively and forced to rely on tips instead of getting wages.
Jayaraman further argued that when workers don’t have to rely on tips to get by, they don’t have to put up with behavior like sexual harassment which is prominent in the waitressing industry.
Republicans in the House of Representatives said the bill doesn’t cut worker pay at all, considering that employers can only pay less than minimum wage if the workers are getting enough tips to make up the difference.
Rep. David Cook (R-Globe) argued that the bill will assist restaurant employees like greeters, line cooks and cleaning staff who don’t get the benefit of tips, by making things more even.
Democrats said in the House that there’s not enough enforcement in the bill that would ensure employers would pay their workers if they don’t make what accounts to minimum wage plus $2 in tips which could allow wage theft.
Barton said he’s confident that even if it’s just the title of the Tipped Workers Protection Act the court finds misleading, they will throw out the entire measure.
However, the court doesn’t have a history of throwing out allegedly “deceptive” ballot measures.
In the filing, Barton cites two cases; Griffin v. Buzard and Leach v. Reagan. In Griffin v. Buzard, two candidates seeking a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission ran with the same first and last name. The election went to a third candidate (Jack Buzard) who was challenged in court.
The challengers argued that Buzard worked with one of two William Brooks on the ballot to confuse supporters of the other William Brooks and draw votes away from him. It did not involve a ballot measure but Barton said it’s a good example of the court’s willingness to allow challenges of bad faith candidates - or measures.
In Leach v. Reagan a ballot measure was challenged for being deceptive, but the court found it was not deceptive.
Barton said there hasn’t been a ruling like that, because there’s rarely been a ballot measure so blatantly misleading.
“We have rarely seen the level of chutzpah that is necessary to call a pay cut a protection,” he said. “We refuse to accept that anyone in Arizona deserves less than the minimum wage.”
