ROCKVILLE, Md. — Tuesday, the tipped wage debate shifts to Montgomery County where Councilmember Will Jawando plans to hold a public hearing on his proposal to increase the tipped minimum wage $2 a year in Montgomery County until it hits the statewide minimum wage of around $15 to $16.
“This is a legacy of slavery,” Jawando said. “The reason that this exists the way it does, is because there was an intentional decision made to not pay servers, most of whom were Black women and women of color a full wage.”
Last week, Prince George’s County was the tipped wage battleground after Councilmember Edward Burroughs III introduced another plan to raise the tipped minimum wage.
“The entire point of this bill is to end poverty wages in Montgomery County,” said Councilmember Jawando to a group of supporters organized by the California based advocacy group One Fair Wage, which advocates for tipped minimum wage increases nationwide.
But Kelly O’Brien, owner of Jaspers restaurant in Upper Marlboro, says her 180 employees worry they would lose tips as customers are forced to pay surcharges to offset the wage increases.
“I know in theory they are trying to help, and it sounds great,” O’Brien said. “But bottom line is business can only pay what we can afford.”
After massive protests organized by the Maryland Restaurant Association and hours of testimony from servers who believe tipped minimum wage increases will cost them money in the long run, the Prince George's County Council voted to table Burroughs' proposal. A spokesperson for the Council told WUSA9 Councilmembers plan to work on a compromise over the next couple of months.
“We have been fighting for 22 years,” said Saru Jayaraman, a California college professor who co-founded a group called One Fair Wage that advocates for tipped minimum wage increases across the country.
Jayaraman said tipped minimum wage increases are spreading across the country. D.C. joined Flagstaff, Arizona and Chicago as the most recent cities to eliminate sub-minimum wage pay for tipped workers.
“Everybody’s leaving for D.C. to work,” said Margarita Diaz, a server working in Prince Georges County.
“We’re not running to D.C. we’re right here fighting to get our rights.”
Mike Saltsman is Executive Director of the Employment Policies Institute, a Virginia non-profit working with the restaurant industry to try and stop tipped wage increases.
“I think what we're going to find out is, does this become a broader regional trend?” Saltsman said.
“I think if anything, the impact of tip wage elimination in Montgomery and Prince George's county could be worse than in D.C.,” Saltsman said.
“I think if you're in an area that doesn't have the same kind of, let's say, tourist volume that you might have in the District proper, I think it's going to be even more difficult for operators to offset that cost.”
Saltsman cited a Cornell study which found states with higher tipped minimum wages resulted in servers getting less in tips.
“I think the future of this is really going to be determined in many ways by what happens in Montgomery and Prince George's County in the next few weeks,” Saltsman predicted. “D.C. is an experiment on what happens when you do this. I would say it's a failed experiment. It's not working out well for the workers.”
Jawando argued the restaurant industry is pushing that narrative to trick servers into not supporting wage increases.
“Basically, fear tactics that if you do this, you won't get tipped anymore, which just is not true,” Jawando said.
Saltsman said it’s unlikely Virginia would adopt tipped minimum wage increases because wage rates in the Commonwealth are controlled by the state legislature not local governments. And Saltsman said the Virginia legislature voted down a tipped wage increase a couple years ago.
The Maryland State Legislature voted down the same idea down earlier this year.