House passes bills to overturn court decision on minimum wage and earned sick time | policy

LANSING, Mich. (WJRT) – State lawmakers have cleared the first major hurdle to blocking changes to the minimum wage and paid time off in Michigan.

The changes were originally due to a Supreme Court decision in July. This decision paves the way for raising the state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2028, phasing out the overturned minimum wage, and allowing all Michigan residents to earn paid sick time.

For Republicans in the House of Representatives, stopping these changes in the new legislative session is their top priority. They left their jobs last month because Democrats failed to act on the bills during the year-end lame-duck period.

When they took over the House this year, they introduced the first two bills, and now the first two bills have passed the House.

“The legislation before us creates a balance. It maintains the current tip credit and ensures servers can continue to be successful with the system they want,” said Rep. Matthew Bierlein (R-Vassar). “The minimum wage will be increased responsibly over time and the earned sick leave mandate will be adjusted to better reflect the realities of small businesses.”

The two bills passed with some bipartisan support. House Bill 4001 passed by a vote of 63-41, while House Bill 4002 passed by a vote of 67-38.

The first of the two bills would slow the increase in the standard minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2029 and keep the minimum wage at 38% of the minimum wage.

At the same time, House Bill 4002 would ensure that paid sick leave requirements apply only to employers with more than 50 employees.

“The servers, the restaurants and their customers cannot afford for lawmakers not to act,” said Rep. Bill G. Schuette (R-Midland).

Despite the bipartisan support, Democrats expressed some concern that the bills would overturn the will of the people. They say the changes to paid time off in particular would prevent the vast majority of Michigan residents from benefiting from it.

“Right now, more than 1.7 million Michiganders do not have access to even an hour of paid sick time. (…) This bill will worsen the crisis by reducing protections for thousands more workers,” said Rep. Tonya Myers Phillips (D-Detroit). ).

House Democrats tried to find a compromise, proposing more than a dozen amendments to both bills to get closer to the Supreme Court’s decision.

“Big business owners have tried to intimidate workers into believing that if their wages are increased, their tips will go away. That’s simply not true. In California, tipped workers earn 16.50 per hour and still have the highest tipping rate in the country at 23 percent,” said Rep. Emily Dievendorf (D-Lansing).

The changes included expanding entry into raising the minimum wage and introducing paid leave for small businesses, as well as tightening language to make it harder for employees to fail to call or fail to show up without consequences.

The latter was cited as a major problem by businesses when the bill was considered in committee, but all proposed changes were quickly rejected.

“Those of us in this chamber are legislators. We make the law, not our current Supreme Court activist. Our job today is to fulfill the will of the people of Michigan, not that of an out-of-state interest group that has nothing to do with workers in the state of Michigan,” said Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown Township).

This fight is far from over. Now the bills go to the Senate, which has already introduced a completely different version of the same package.

If no action is taken in the meantime, the Supreme Court’s decision will take effect on February 21.