A years-long fight over Michigan’s minimum wage law may not be over yet, thanks to a new referendum effort. If successful, the referendum would repeal bipartisan compromise legislation that passed in February.
The issue started in 2018 when a then-Republican controlled Michigan Legislature adopted a ballot initiative to increase the state's minimum wage scale into law before it could go before voters. Lawmakers then amended the policy to significantly weaken it before it could take effect.
The Michigan Supreme Court eventually ruled that strategy, known as “adopt and amend,” was unconstitutional and set a date in this past February for the original law to take effect.
But lawmakers again stepped in to change the law right before the court decision went into effect. That was in the face of heavy pressure from service industry groups. One of their chief arguments was that the court decision would set into motion an untenable increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers.
Saru Jayaraman is executive director of the group behind the referendum, One Fair Wage. She said her group is already putting together a campaign to collect signatures this summer.
“What we're hearing, frankly, not just from restaurant workers, but from all workers, is that people are pissed off, people are really angry, they feel really betrayed, and they're mobilized to try to, not to just try, but to absolutely get these signatures,” Jayaraman said.
Getting the referendum on the Michigan ballot would require around 223,000 signatures, a lower threshold than starting over with another ballot initiative. But first, organizers will need approval from a state election board at a meeting scheduled for later this month to move forward.
Jayaraman said the signature-gathering will effort include paid gatherers, volunteers, and support from unions and faith groups.
The original law would have gradually increased the minimum wage for both tipped and non-tipped workers until both would have made the same base amount. The law from February makes it so the minimum wage for tipped workers is, at most, half of what it is for everyone else.
Rebekah Paxton, research director with the Employment Policies Institute, said it’s still too early to see how the final deal would affect Michigan’s economy. But she warned the previous wage hike would have hurt businesses and service-industry workers.
“As they have to account for higher wage rates, they may have to reduce schedules, they may have to limit their opening hours, they may lay off staff. And so what we've seen in the data is that as the tipped wage goes up, we see employment suffers in restaurants, we see tips suffer in restaurants,” Paxton said.
A successful referendum campaign would restore the state’s minimum wage law to what it would have been under the Supreme Court’s decision. But that decision could still go into effect, at least temporarily, even before an election.
That’s because, under Michigan law, a law targeted for referendum would have its implementation suspended once the referendum qualifies for the ballot.
