BSO: No on Five

Flowers and a flag in downtown Northampton.

Be there or be square.

All around Hamp are political messages such as this one on Jake's.

And across the street at the Hotel Hamp.

Outside a Florence pizza parlor.

The widespread opposition on display at restaurants throughout our Valley to Question #5 is counter-intuitive. After all, the purpose of the question is to raise the minimum hourly pay for restaurant workers to the same rate as all workers. So why are they opposing a pay increase?

Primarily because it would put a lot of restaurants out of business. Even Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, who is otherwise wrong on virtually all issues, sees the danger of this initiative. Amazingly, the Guvnah was a waitress herself back when she was still living in her native state of New Hampshire:

Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday she’s voting no on a ballot question that would change the pay structure for tipped employees out of concern it would lead to restaurant closures. It’s a stance the governor says is informed by both her conversations with restaurant industry personnel and her own experience waiting tables in her teens and 20s.

“I think it’s important to vote no on this because I think you run the risk of closing restaurants and putting these workers out of work, actually, because the restaurant owners I speak [to] are not going to be able to afford this and they’re going to end up laying off people,” Healey said during her monthly appearance on Boston Public Radio. “In some instances, some have told me they’re just going to shut down.”

In Massachusetts, where the standard state minimum wage is $15 an hour, businesses can pay their tipped employees a lower minimum wage of $6.75 an hour.... Healey said she waitressed “on and off” between the ages of 13 and 24, including morning shifts at a diner and time as a cocktail waitress at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in her home state of New Hampshire.

I hope Healey gave better service to her diner and bar customers than she now gives to the taxpayers! In any case she's right - what good is a pay raise if as a result you become unemployed? This foolish ballot question is a classic example of what happens when meddlesome do-gooders decide that they know what's best for the workers better than the workers do themselves.

Peacers outside the courthouse.