South Shore Restaurant Owner Makes A Case Against Tipped Ballot Question

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2024/10/16/ballot-question-5/

A South Shore restauranteur worries that one Massachusetts ballot question has the potential to kill jobs in his industry.

Erik Hynes wants people to vote No on Question 5 this upcoming November and recently laid out his case against it.

Question 5 in Massachusetts asks voters if the state should raise its tipped minimum wage from $6.75 an hour to match the state’s minimum wage by 2029 (currently $15 an hour). Currently, if a tipped worker’s employer pay plus tips doesn’t add up to $15 an hour at the end of a shift, the employer must make up the difference, according to Mass.gov. Yet, the amount the employer must pay to make up the difference varies. Oftentimes, a tipped worker earns more than $15 an hour on his own.  

Additionally, the ballot question would allow restaurants to administer tip pools that include all of the restaurant’s employees, including back-of-house workers. Currently, restaurant tip pools in Massachusetts can only include workers, like waiters, bartenders, and service employees like bussers and food runners. This means that managers, bouncers, cooks, dishwashers, and hostesses cannot legally be a part of these tip pools. 

Hynes and his family own several restaurants under the Hynes Restaurant Group umbrella. These include: 71° West Atlantic Steakhouse (Plymouth, Massachusetts), Bay Pointe Waterfront Restaurant (Quincy, Massachusetts), 42° North Restaurant & Lounge (Plymouth, Massachusetts), Precinct 10 (Weymouth, Massachusetts), and Stockholders Steakhouse (Weymouth, Massachusetts).

Hynes told The JV Team with Jared Valanzola on 95.9 WATD on Wednesday, September 25 that the ballot questio proposal is a solution in search of a problem, given that restaurant workers already make at least $15 an hour.

“There is no problem,” Hynes said. “We’re not Europe. We have our own way of doing things with the tipped economy. It’s interesting because when it comes to making decisions in the restaurant industry there’s always two sides. You have the restaurant management and the employees and you try to form a happy medium. There’s always differences and a little strife in the middle. This might be the only issue in restaurant history where everyone agrees:  the bartenders, servers, the busboys, the managers, the owners, that No on 5 is a no-brainer.”

Hynes said that Question 5 misleads people since it implies that restaurant workers make less than minimum wage.

“It sounds like it’s a great thing. You have all these seemingly good people trying to do the right thing who will say, ‘Oh wow! Let’s increase the pay of those hard-working restaurant employees to $15 an hour,’ which is double what the tipped minimum wage is,” Hynes said. “But this is a pay raise they do not want. It’s actually a massive pay cut.”

Hynes said it would result in a pay cut for workers by way of reduced tips and fewer trips out to eat and drink.

“We cannot absorb this massive payroll increase which means we are going to have to pass it off to the consumer,” Hynes said. “That could come in the form of increased menu prices, which it will, or service fees — and everybody loves a fee on a check.”

“They’re gonna go out less because it’s gonna be more expensive,” he added. “And, like I said, it doesn’t eliminate tipping, but if they know the server is making double what they were before, they’re not going to be tipping as much — and that is going to kill the servers and the bartenders.”

One Fair Wage, an organization that wants to end the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers nationwide, led the effort to get Question 5 on the ballot.

The organization argues that tipped workers deserve the same minimum wage as everyone else — plus tips.

“Big restaurant corporations are not paying their fair share and are forcing consumers to cover their employees’ wages through tips,” One Fair Wage wrote on its ballot question committee web site. “Tips should be a reward for good service, not a subsidy for low wages paid by large corporations.”

Plus, the organization argues that all restaurant workers should get a share of the tips given to bartenders and waiters.

“Restaurants and bars will have the option of including back-of-house workers in tip pools, bringing Massachusetts up to the federal standard, increasing teamwork within restaurant staff, and lifting up all workers,” One Fair Wage wrote

Voters are set to decide this ballot question on Tuesday, November 5.

 

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