Pearl River        There are two “NRAs” that swing big sticks around the US, pushing bad policy for people and workers.  The dangerously effective and scandal-ridden National Rifle Association is perhaps the best known, but the National Restaurant Association, another NRA, is quieter and more comfortable on the back pages and the back rooms, but equally dangerous when it comes to service workers and their wages.  This NRA fought us hammer and tong in one local and statewide campaign that ACORN and Local 100 ran to raise minimum wages across the country, even debating us directly in some cities, so we knew them well from those days.

They haven’t changed their opposition to fair wages for food service and restaurant employees.  Having been involved with the social enterprise coffeehouses of Fair Grinds for more than a decade, there was no way to avoid getting their constant emails trying to push their program nationally and locally.  They had wheedled their way into any operations serving food, because they controlled the certification of workers on food safety rules through subsidiary organizations handling these issues for local and state health departments.  I understood their organizing model since our affiliates in India were using the same tool to offer certifications in food and health safety to organize hawkers and vendors there.

McDonalds for years has been the poster child for fast food worker and low wage exploitation.  Suddenly, they have quit the National Restaurant Association.  Unlike many others, they had actually joined and been a mainstay of this NRA.  Their reason for quitting:  they claim they want workers to be paid more.  Wow!  Did the sun rise in the west suddenly?

Here’s the rub.  The NRA many years ago convinced Congress back in prehistoric times decades ago, when presidents of both parties regularly raised the federal minimum wage, to allow a credit on the minimum wage where tipping was common in the establishment.  The “tip credit” is only $2.13 paid by the establishment, with tips carrying the bulk of the weight to satisfy the federal minimum of only $7.25 an hour.  Micky-D and other fast-food operations pay the local, state, or federal minimum wage where they operate without tips, so they are finally upset that their competitors are able to start competing on price with them by paying their workers less and having the customers pay them more with tips.  Trump played around with taxes on tips, but his program was singing the NRA’s song, since it helped out the employers and their commitment to customers paying their workers, as much as it did some groups of highly tipped service workers.

This is not a new fight, but it is new to have McDonald’s with us for a change, even if only because it’s in their self-interest.  A handful of states have eliminated the tip credit, but there’s no sign – or much hope right now – that it will be ditched federally.  We may have to keep winning this locally and on the state level, but if, in the by and by, we ever see an increase in the federal minimum wage, if fast-food joins our fight, maybe we can fight the NRA toe to toe and get rid of this exploitive sub-minimum tip credit.