Florida bill would slash minimum wage for tipped workers

[jdhoch]

A Florida Senate committee has followed the advice of a restaurant association and passed a bill that would cut the minimum wage for tipped workers by more than half.
The bill, SB 2106, would slash the current Florida tipped minimum wage of of $4.65 an hour to the federal standard of of $2.13 an hour, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Restaurants would have to promise that employees would make at least $9.98 an hour with tips to qualify for the new wage.
“We are being brave and bold and being statesmen and not politicians,” Republican state Sen. Nancy Detert, the committee’s chair, asserted, adding that the bill had been requested by the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.

Systemic Capital .com

[Ocean Seal]

I really hate how the right wingers call themselves brave for standing up to the oppressed and stepping on them even more. Its the kind of thing that just pisses me off.

[Ostrinski]

I really don't know what to say on these types of threads anymore. These things speak for themselves.

[Winkers Fons]

I would quit my job if this passed. I usually don't even make enough in tips to cover the gap between tipped wages and normal minimum wage. This is in addition to the fact that most of my tips immediately go to gas and vehicle maintenance in order to keep doing my job as a delivery driver. At $2.13 an hour I would be losing money for every day I work.

[Marvin the Marxian]

Things like this make me want to throw up. Instead of slashing the minimum wage for anyone, the minimum wage should be raised until it's the same as the estimated living wage if not higher. The current federal minimum wage is well below that for even a single person, let alone a family with children.

Oh and aren't statesmen and politicians the same thing?

[Klaatu]

Why don't we have a Maximum Wage? (No one earns more than $80,000/year.)

[Conscript]

I thought this was an established practice already. It is at least in new jersey.

[Marvin the Marxian]

Why don't we have a Maximum Wage? (No one earns more than $80,000/year.)

Of course! I didn't mean to leave that out. So why not have both? :)

[Le Rouge]

WTF!!! $2.13 for an hour? In canada, the minimum wage is 8.90$/hour in the province of Ontario for tipped workers.

Fucking right wingers.

[Ostrinski]

Why don't we have a Maximum Wage? (No one earns more than $80,000/year.)http://arts.anu.edu.au/sss/pols3017/Images/Theorists/keynes.jpg

[GoddessCleoLover]

Wouldn't it be a hoot if right-wingers who advocate this type of anti-worker legislation were required to work for that two buck chuck minimum wage? I would LOVE to see some proletarian dictatorship exercised on this issue.

[Prometeo liberado]

I'm only surprised that California has not done the same yet. This issue comes up all the time there and never really seems to get enough traction. The thing is is that servers and bartenders rarely even see a paycheck. The taxes that they owe on their tips are taken out of their hourly wages. The hit comes when they have to pay their quarterly taxes. This is just more of the same war on the poor. Minimum wage means nothing more than "if we could pay you less we would", obviously in this case they can.

[GoddessCleoLover]

This is a wicked piece of reactionary legislation, and Jbeard is absolutely right that paychecks usually barely cover the with-holding taxes. Cutting the minimum wage would just put the workers deeper in the hole when it is time to pay the taxman. Forget about making the reactionaries work for the minimum wage. I feel like becoming a temporary Stalinist and sending those reactionaries to Kolyma.

[Klaatu]

Brospierre:

Keynes, correct? Please elaborate.



Of course! I didn't mean to leave that out. So why not have both? :)

Yes. A minimum wage of $20,000 and maximum of $80,000 (doctors, and workers doing extremely dangerous/unhealthful jobs)

[spacemanmick]

The fact tuition hikes being passed in Florida Universities and the fact that tipped service industry jobs are usually the only way students can maintain financing a college education without acquiring massive student debt makes this all the more sinister.