Why you should pay attention to Massachusetts’s Question 5 this election.
This article is a part of Down-Ballot, a weeklong series highlighting state measures worth watching in the 2024 United States election.
A contentious ballot question has Massachusetts wait and bar staff fearing a dramatic change in their hourly take home pay following this November. For Corri DePatra, a bartender and server since 2001, the potential industry change is maddening.
“They’re trying to pull on heartstrings,” DePatra says. “I just think it is very emotionally manipulative.”
Question 5 on the Massachusetts ballot this election year is an initiative proposed by One Fair Wage, a national nonprofit and NGO. If the measure passes in the state, it would lead to a gradual rise in the minimum wage base pay for tipped workers from its current $6.75 to $15 an hour in the next five years. Eventually, the change would also allow for a shared tip pool between the front and back of the house to be managed by restaurant owners. But many restaurant workers have come out in opposition to its passing, arguing it would likely actually decrease their take home pay.
“We were all at city hall and I went in to listen to the hearing,” DePatra says, noting that she was particularly outraged by One Fair Wage’s closing arguments, which pointed to discrimination against women as a driving factor for the initiative. As a waitress standing with others at the hearing, DePatra felt they were invalidating her experiences as a woman working as a tipped restaurant worker, and misrepresenting the amount of hard work that goes into being a part of the restaurant industry.
DePatra works at The Kenmore, a Boston pub specializing in fresh pregame eats and draft beers, where signs to “vote no” adorn the walls in hopes of informing customers of how their restaurant workers feel. To learn more, all signs point to a website for a coalition of small and large restaurants known as the Committee to Protect Tips.
The Committee is spearheaded by two of the largest groupings of restaurant leaders in the state: Massachusetts Restaurants United (MRU), a coalition of industry leaders from various sized restaurants and cafes that began after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA), a not-for-profit lobbyist group. Their joint mission against Question 5 has so far been endorsed by eight local mayors, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and hundreds of Massachusetts restaurant workers.
“A lot of people are going to lose their jobs if this passes,” says Ryan Lotz, president of MRU and leader at Traveler Street Hospitality. “We’re going to see secondary and incurred costs go up for the restaurant operators and owners.”
Earlier this year, an MRU poll about industry crises noted that 85% of restaurant leaders said they are one surprise expense away from having to close. According to Lotz, restaurants are going to see an increase of over $18,000 per year per employee if the initiative is fully deployed, something most simply can’t afford. Restaurants will be forced to shift to models with fewer servers but quicker service, he argues, implementing functions like QR code menus or counters. And for guests, it will also mean higher menu prices and more fees on their checks when it comes to processing service.
“I think that people don’t really understand the restaurant industry, and don’t really understand how slim the margins are,” Lotz says.
These profit margins typically fall in the 0-15% range, with the bulk of restaurants falling around the 3-5% mark, according to national restaurant system Toast. Most of those restaurants are only able to stay open, Lotz argues, because of tips.
Currently, Massachusetts, like the majority of the United States, operates on a tip credit across the restaurant industry. This translates to every server or bartender making a base pay and tips filling in the rest of the minimum wage and more. Server Adam Dougherty has been in the industry for seven years and currently works at Fenway sports bar Cask ‘N Flagon. Even on a slow day, he says he already surpasses the $15 bar.
“People will probably tip less,” says Dougherty. “I’m going to be voting no.”
Advocates for the ballot question, meanwhile, argue that tipped wages need to become a thing of the past, and allege that the tip credit model is particularly harmful for women and people of color across the industry. This is because it can allow restaurants to get away with paying staff less than a livable wage without consequence, while putting the burden on customers to make up the difference.
One Fair Wage, which is headquartered in California, champions the initiative across the country via satellite organizing heads which advocate for tipped worker payment changes state-by-state. According to Grace McGovern, one of two Massachusetts full-time state organizers working for One Fair Wage, who has been a tipped worker herself, combating misinformation has been difficult.
“So many people are just so surprised that a subminimum wage is still in place,” says McGovern.
She adds opposition from the Committee to Protect Tips has also weaponized their research.
“Even if 90% of the 300 people that they had completed their survey answered that they want things to stay the same, there are still 124,700 tipped workers in Massachusetts—at least—without their voices heard,” McGovern says.
Massachusetts is one of six active campaign efforts targeted at raising the minimum wage this year, with other states including Rhode Island, Arizona, and Missouri. But in total, One Fair Wage has initiated 16 total targeted campaigns in states or territories, according to their website.
One place where the campaign has been successful is Washington, D.C., where according to McGovern, there has been a positive increase in the earnings of workers. Lotz, on the other hand, sees it as a tragedy.
“This passed recently, and when it did, we saw approximately 6,000 jobs lost and restaurants closing,” Lotz says.
Another hotly debated aspect of the Massachusetts ballot question is the change to the shared tip pool. Currently, Massachusetts does not have comprehensive shared tips legislation. According to McGovern, the initiative would eventually allow for tip sharing with front and back of house, but it is not immediately required. Its ultimate purpose, however, is to move us away from tipping culture as a whole, and instead make a higher minimum wage the norm.
Jay Zagorsky, professor of public policy and law at the Questrom School of Business, agrees that tips should be eliminated, but thinks Question 5 is not the answer.
“Question 5 is poorly written and poorly thought out,” he says.
According to Zagorsky, one of the biggest indicators of Question 5’s failure comes in the form of the legislative committee’s comments in the ballot guide, which states in all capital letters that it “OUGHT NOT TO BE ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE AT THIS TIME.”
So if Question 5 is not the answer, what is? Those voting no are not quite sure.
“Eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers on a state-by-state basis is not the right way to go,” says Zagorsky, pointing out how rising labor costs will directly lead to fewer jobs and those that remain will be “worse off.”
For Lotz, fighting the current initiative remains his first priority. He can’t quite think of anything else before that’s resolved.
“I would be more than happy to start working on that if this doesn’t pass,” Lotz says. “What keeps me awake at night is that people are going into the voting booth in November with a lack of knowledge. We need to get as many people to understand the gravity of this question before November.”
