DC mayor says Initiative 82 needs to be repealed

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says a controversial law regarding restaurant wages for tipped workers needs to be repealed.

The effort to repeal what was known as 2022鈥檚 Initiative 82 was unveiled Monday as part of her plan to transform the city鈥檚 federally dependent economy.

In the fall of 2022, voters approved the measure to end the tipped minimum wage and create one wage scale for workers regardless of their industry. The referendum passed by a 3-1 margin, though efforts to pass a similar measure in other neighboring jurisdictions haven’t been so successful.

Appearing at a venue on H Street Northeast, Bowser said it鈥檚 clearly hurting the city鈥檚 restaurants disproportionately.

鈥淭he economy that we’re dealing with right now and the environment for restaurants is vastly different than the economy and the environment that restaurants were operating in when this ballot measure was advanced,鈥� Bowser said. 鈥淚t would be negligent of us to act like we’re in the same place we were three years ago.鈥�

‘We have to save this industry,’ Bowser says

Any changes to the law would require approval from the D.C. Council, which overturned the measure once before, in 2018. She thinks there鈥檚 a strong case for the council to do it again.

鈥淭hey know the importance of restaurants to our economy and local hiring and keeping D.C. residents employed, they can see that we are out of line with the rest of the region, and we are losing investment of new restaurants, growing restaurants and employees to other parts of the region,鈥� Bowser said.

She wouldn鈥檛 speculate whether voters would look at the referendum differently from 2022, but said city residents are supportive of policies that make sense.

鈥淲e have to save this industry, and there are things that are going to be out of our control with other increasing costs, but this one is in our control,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is a local policy, and we have to make the strong case.鈥�

Joining Bowser on stage at the Atlas Theater was Rock Harper, a chef who owns two restaurants on the H Street Northeast corridor.

鈥淭hat means that we have a way to get to profitability,鈥� he said, in regards to the proposal. 鈥淚f you have a fast casual restaurant or a fine dining restaurant, you all have to operate the same way, and that just doesn’t work. We have the data, and we see that just doesn’t work.

鈥淩aising the minimum wage for everybody really shrunk the scope of getting to profitability,鈥� he said afterward.

In an emailed statement, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington thanked Bowser for her support and said repealing the legislation is about “saving jobs, saving restaurants, and stabilizing a vital sector of the District鈥檚 economy.”

The group called on the D.C. Council to repeal the initiative, echoing its sentiments shared with District lawmakers from last month.

A leading advocate for repealing the measure, the Arlington-based Employment Policies Institute, hailed the move, saying it has 鈥渨reaked havoc鈥� on the industry.

鈥淎dvocates promised the law would bring higher wages with no impact on tips,鈥� Rebekah Paxton, a research director with the think tank, said in a statement. 鈥淏ut all D.C. tipped workers actually got were fewer tips, lost jobs, and closed restaurants.”

‘Stunning betrayal’

The group One Fair Wage, which pushed the referendum that overwhelmingly passed in 2022, also put out a blistering statement on the measure.

鈥淭his is a stunning betrayal of D.C. workers and democracy,鈥� Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage, said in a statement. 鈥淢ayor Bowser is siding with industry lobbyists who have fought fair wages for decades, rather than respecting the twice-expressed will of voters who chose dignity, fairness, and economic justice.鈥�

The group argues that tipping of workers remains strong, and that restaurant employment continues to increase.

鈥淭he data shows growth, not collapse,鈥� she added. 鈥淰oters in the District voted in favor of One Fair Wage twice 鈥� we will thus be fighting for their votes to matter.”

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