SENATE BILL: Long-term Unemployment Relief Act (Law'd)

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Aye

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4. Section 1, clauses 3-6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 2013 are repealed with the remaining clauses renumbered accordingly.

5. Section 4 of The Productivity Equalization and Worker Employment Act of 2011 is amended as follows:

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2. The minimum wage for tipped employees shall, upon the passage of this legislation, automatically adjust for increases in worker productivity and inflation at the same rate as does the regular federal minimum wage. The previous chart shall not be construed to deny a minimum wage adjustment based on inflation or increases in productivity to any employee.

3. The scaled increase to the minimum wage for tipped employees, as noted in Section 1 shall expire on January 1, 20202018 and the tipped minimum wage shall, at that point, be equalized to the regular federal minimum wage. There shall, from January 1, 20202018, be no difference in the federal minimum wage for tipped and other employees.

4. From the period between January 1, 2014 to January 1, 2020, tipped employees may 'opt-out' of the compensation adjustment for tipped employees. In doing so, tipped employees shall be paid the previous federal minimum wage for tipped employees until the next scheduled increase, at which point they will be once again asked whether or not to 'opt-out' of it.
   4a. Tipped employees having opted out of the compensation adjustment schedule shall be paid a gratuity of 20 percent automatically charged on all purchases by any employer employing tipped employees foregoing the compensation adjustment schedule.
   4b. Effective January 1, 2020, the opt-out provision of this law and the automatic gratuity charge shall be terminated and all employees currently paid in tips instead paid the federal minimum wage.
   4c. Employers may not be deny the right of employees to opt in or out of a tipped compensation program. Denying a worker such a right is punishable by law and may result in the loss of one’s business license and/or a fine of up to $25,000 per denied employee.
   4d. Employers and employees must indicate the form of compensation on tax documents from any jurisdiction. All jurisdictions must recognize both forms of compensation for currently tipped employees.

5. Restaurants shall not charge a service charge exceeding 15% on services rendered by employees who have opted in to the compensation adjustment program.
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5.6. It shall be the policy of the Atlasian Federal Government and all its agencies that any gap(s) in an applicant's employment shall not in itself be considered a basis for disqualification or nonconsideration for employment or contract
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AYE

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The way I had this structured, at least how I thought it was structured, was that you could do 1 of 2 things. First, you could opt in for a tipped position and then make a lower base wage, but be able to receive tips. Or, you could opt out of being tipped and make a higher base wage. The opt out was designed to bridge the gap until we did away with tipped positions entirely, but it may not be wise to do that in retrospect. To make up for this, I allowed restaurants to charge a "service fee" to make up the difference because they cannot afford to pay $12+ an hour to servers. The service industry isn't known for their high profit margins, and we'd put a lot of places out of business if we forced them to pay that much without allowing a service charge (basically a mandatory tip).

I would be interested in keeping the opt out program around if at all feasible, it may too confusing though, but I do agree that the tipped position rates need to be lower than they apparently are. It makes no sense for them to make the same rate as those who are not tipped while also being able to make extra money on top of that. I didn't think that was how we structured it, but if we did, that is my mistake.

It looks like it is structured so that an employee can opt-out of being paid the higher minimum wage, and then is paid from fund that is an extra 20% on the employer's capital expenses.  It's pretty confusing and I think whatever it actually means it would just end up being an extra headache for the employer being required to keep up with two different ways of measuring a minimum wage, so that is why I struck it out with this amendment.

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motion for a final vote.

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AYE

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What does this bill do for our minimum wage? Are the minimum wage changes dead?

The regular minimum wage is kept at 12.50 with this bill, instead of increasing.

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What does this bill do for our minimum wage? Are the minimum wage changes dead?

The regular minimum wage is kept at 12.50 with this bill, instead of increasing.

I believe that 12.50 is indexed to inflation also under pre-FLSA statute.

Yes, that is correct. This bill doesn't change that.