By Bill Parry
Thousands of restaurant servers, hotel housekeepers and other tipped workers across New York state will enjoy a wage hike that will raise their hourly pay to $7.50, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday. The increase was ordered by Acting Labor Commissioner Mario Musolino and it will go into effect later this year.
“You cannot raise a family, pay for rent and food and insurance and health care on $18,000 a year in the city of New York,” Cuomo said to union members of the Hotel and Motel Trades Council in Manhattan.
The governor’s plan will likely meet resistance from Senate Republicans as restaurant owners warn that higher labor costs will force many to raise prices, reduce hours for workers or close altogether. Cuomo told the union workers and their leaders that he had little sympathy for the business owners.
Wages for tipped workers now range from $4.90 to $5.65 an hour.
“We want business to do well so that these leaders can sit down with business and say, ‘We want our fair share of what’s going on,” Cuomo said. “So when they sit down with the leaders of business, the leaders of business cannot say, ‘We’re broke,’ because we know they’re not. They’re making record profits.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
