Tipped employees to receive higher wages
Gov. Matt Blunt changed the interpretation of the statute.
Published March 16, 2007
Employees whose pay is supplemented with tips will benefit from the state's increased minimum wage now that an order by Gov. Matt Blunt has cleared up confusion about enforcement of the law.
"The governor decided after consulting with his general counsel, and we agree with him that the law should be interpreted differently," said Tammy Cavender, Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations spokeswoman.
Blunt stated in a news release that his directive was in accordance with the November election when Missourians voted to increase the minimum wage.
"Missourians voted to increase the minimum wage, and I have directed the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to immediately clarify that the base wage is not exempt from this mandate," Blunt stated in the release. "The department has an obligation to instruct businesses that hire tipped employees to increase salaries in accordance with the law."
Blunt spokeswoman Jessica Robinson said the issue had come to the governor's attention within the past week or so.
"As soon as the issue came to his attention, he directed his general counsel to review the statutes and codes," she said. "Once that was done, he directed the department to clarify that the base wage was not exempted from the new law."
Cavender said the department's original interpretation of the law stated that an employer was not required to pay a "base wage" to supplement an employee's tips if the employee was making the regular minimum wage of $6.50 based on tips alone. Cavender said the original interpretation did not take into account existing state regulations regarding the minimum wage.
Before the new law passed, the base wage was $2.13 for tipped employees. The original interpretation of the new law was that the base wage was eliminated if the employee's tips totaled $6.50 per hour. The new interpretation of the law by Blunt requires tipped employees to make the base wage of $3.25 per hour. The amount was chosen because it is 50 percent of $6.50, Cavender said.
Aaron Burnett, an organizer of Jobs with Justice, a St. Louis coalition that pushed for the new interpretation, said the decision was "a long time coming."
"We feel it was about time, and rightfully done," he said. "The law shouldn't have been misinterpreted when clearly stated."
Robinson said she couldn't comment about why the issue took so long to reach the governor.
Burnett said because Blunt is a Republican, he probably wanted to wait as long as he could to change the interpretation.
"I have to say that people often do things differently than what is stated in an attempt to get away with it as long as no one says anything about it," he said. "There are only two types of power: money power and people power. We don't have much money, so we put this issue to the people that do this work, and they asked to be included."