Posted on 12/13/2019 4:37:49 AM PST by karpov
This city’s minimum wage is rising to $16.39 an hour on Jan. 1. Instead of receiving a bigger paycheck, I’m left without any pay at all due to the policy change. That’s because the restaurant where I’ve worked for six years is closing as a consequence of the city’s harmful minimum-wage experiment.
I work for Tom Douglas, one of the best-known restaurateurs in Seattle. Mr. Douglas is in many ways responsible for the city’s reputation as a foodie paradise, and he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in business. He’s a great boss, and his employees tend to stay at the company for a long time.
But being an established chef and a good employer doesn’t save you from the burden of a sharp minimum-wage increase, up 73% from $9.47 in 2015. For large-scale employers like Mr. Douglas, there’s no separate rate for workers who earn tips. In Washington and a handful of other states, tips aren’t counted as income earned on the job. That means restaurateurs are expected to pay servers like me the full minimum wage in addition to our considerable tip income.
When rent is too high, labor costs too much, and customers don’t want to pay $40 for a roast-chicken entree, the only way for many operators to ease the pain is to close.
So now, after six years working at Mr. Douglas’s restaurant Tanakasan, I need to find a new work home. My first thought was to go back to Sitka & Spruce, a restaurant where I had once worked. (I previously had to take on a second job there after the rising minimum wage forced Tanakasan to adopt a no-tipping payment model, drastically reducing my income.)
As it turns out, I can’t return to Sitka & Spruce. [It is closing too.]
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Simone....
Why should I give a damn? You are a fool to live in Seattle.
You should move to America
This is just one of the top ten things making Seattle into a marginalized city, and chasing the population beyond the city limits.
Post signs. “NO TIPS PLEASE. Waiter salaries now cover tips”
Then raise your rates accordingly. Fire anyone who accepts tips.
Ever try to tip someone in Costco? They won’t take it. It will cost them their jobs.
Paging Pennsylvania.
You lot can’t say you weren’t warned.
Holy crap-that’s insanity.
Thanks to free health care passed by Queen Nancy and signed into law by The One, you are now free to follow your dreams such as naked Bongo playing. So instead of complaining get to work on your bongo skills! Oh and remember to vote for Democrats.... repeatly....
You got what you voted for.
Silly boy, don’t you know you’re only supposed to get food from the state?
“You got what you voted for.”
She can always learn to code.
Leftist DemRats ruin everything—-EVERYTHING Including themselves. They never learn and facts be damned.
Seattle will become a restaurant desert.
“I’m proudly progressive in my politics...minimum-wage laws...hurt the very workers they’re trying to protect.
“Ms. Barron is a restaurant worker and co-founder of the Full Service Workers Alliance.”
Last paragraph from article.
She’s also head of a restaurant workers union.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-barron-76b0a9168
Simone Barron
Server at Tanakasan
Greater Seattle Area 74 connections
I’m a 33 year veteran of the service industry. Director of the Full Service Workers Alliance Seattle. Founder and Director of Restaurant Workers of America. Industry Advocate. Industry Consultant with a Workers POV.
This, during one of the biggest booming economies in History.
The government does not have the right to mandate a minimum or maximum hourly pay rate. Nothing else matters.
Tom Douglas was a neighbor and he or his sisters used to baby sit for us back in Delaware. Every visit to Seattle we’ve made over the years we visit one of his restaurants and see him if we can. Used to love both things; visiting Seattle and dining at his or any of the other good eateries out there. The leftward lurch has made us avoid going anymore.
It is wrong to blame a poor waitress for the politics of the people in power. They are do-gooders don’t you know. They spend other peoples money and promise to protect the Simone’s of the world who end up getting hurt instead. Blame the Tom Steyer’s and Bezos instead. They should know better.
Why is everyone slagging Simone? For all I can tell, she has always worked hard, provided for herself and been a been a contributor to society.
Yep, she lives in Seattle, chances are pretty good that conservatives don't agree with her on many things. It's our job to demonstrate and articulate the better path. Those directly affected by leftist activism are already looking for the better path. This person (and those like her) are exactly who we need to have rational dialog.
Let's not summarily cast them off. Remember where the great Ronald Reagan began his journey.
You should care because this sort of insanity is metastasizing. Living in a “red state” today is no guarantee that the current political climate will continue in perpetuity. School systems everywhere are teaching the same thing. Socialism is the way, and more government is the answer.
Dessert desert.
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