Fiercely contested bill to raise minimum wage to $17 an hour advances

The measure would also provide for annual increases in the minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index.

The proposal — sponsored by Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque — has ignited fierce opposition from business advocates from around the state, who say it would have a devastating effect on businesses that employ minimum-wage and tipped workers.

Carol Wight, CEO of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, said the proposed hike comes at a time when many restaurants in the state already are struggling. Wight said she regularly has restaurant operators call her on the verge of tears.

“Restaurants are just barely making it,” she said. “Some of the best restaurants that have been around for years are really struggling to make it. Inflation has been very hard on them. Most of them are averse to raising menu prices, even though sometimes they have to.”

Advocates, meanwhile, said New Mexico’s minimum-wage workers need more to survive. Roybal Caballero said she is unwilling to watch as New Mexico’s workforce was further exploited by companies looking for cheap labor.

“I see it as a matter of pride for our state,” she said. “We are taking major steps to say that we are breaking the cycle of poverty.”

‘Please don’t’

Wight said the Roybal Caballero’s bill is far more ambitious than proposed minimum-wage hikes in previous years.

“It’s much higher at $17 an hour than anything we’ve seen in the past,” she said during an interview Feb. 12 with The New Mexican.

Wight took particular exception to the significant increase in the tipped wage. She said the changes would cost a restaurant with just 20 full-time employees nearly $400,000 a year in increased labor costs.

“That not just inflationary, it’s hugely hurtful,” Wight said.

Wight said the change would bring about major industry changes. She said she believes most servers oppose the provision, fearing it will lead to significant job losses.

“Entire business models would have to change,” Wight said. “You’d be looking at a lot more counter service. Most servers would not be in these positions, in all likelihood."

Sam Gerberding, general manager of the Inn of the Governors and the Del Charro Saloon in Santa Fe, said in an interview he had spoken to several of his staff members who rely on tips to make a living, and they overwhelmingly oppose the idea of raising their hourly wage to $17 an hour.

“Their response is, ‘Please don’t,’” said Gerberding, who is also president of the Santa Fe Lodgers Association. “They feel more in control of their livelihoods at that point. … That is something they have always preferred.”

At $14.60 per hour, Santa Fe’s minimum wage is higher than the state’s. Gerberding said most Santa Fe businesses have adjusted to the challenges of paying a higher minimum wage, but he said the same would not be true in smaller, rural communities.

“When you move outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque and move into the rest of the state, the vast majority of the businesses in the state are really small and do not have the capacity for that,” Gerberding said.

‘It is exploitation’

Supporters of the proposal, however, said minimum wage workers need higher wages to support themselves and their families.

Megan Green, president of the Communications Workers of America Local 7976, said Thursday during a Labor, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee hearing that according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “living wage calculator,” a childless adult would need to make $21 an hour to live in New Mexico.

Two working parents with two children, meanwhile, would each need to earn more than $26.

The $17-an-hour rate proposed in the bill doesn’t come close to matching that, she said.

In an interview, Green added business owners who bemoan the impact a minimum-wage hike would have on them nevertheless can take the afternoon off to attend a hearing or hire lobbyists to speak for them. That’s not something most low-wage earners are in a position to do, she said.

“These are all the people who have the means and reserves to do that,” she said. “But you don’t have the means to pay your folks a living wage?”

Green said people don’t have to look hard to see the glaring effects of poverty in New Mexico.

“When you drive through Albuquerque or Santa Fe, you see people everywhere who can’t afford to live in a house,” she said. “It’s upsetting.”

The passage of HB 246 won’t fix that entirely, she acknowledged, but she said it would be a move toward a more equitable society.

She said she is especially supportive of the provision in the bill that would lead to annual increases in the rate of pay based on the Consumer Price Index “so we don’t have to go through this every year.”

Karen Martinez, a Rio Arriba County resident, said she is tired of seeing many of her neighbors work two or three jobs to support their families.

“It is exploitation from their employers who don’t want to pay living wages,” she said.

Judy Messal of the New Mexico Conference of Churches said she considered the minimum wage proposal a good way for New Mexicans to show their appreciation for low-wage essential workers who provided an invaluable service during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, who played a significant role in getting the state’s minimum wage increased in 2019, said he supports the intentions of the bill but said he favored the incremental increases in the minimum wage that were part of the 2019 law.

“I don’t support the substance in the way it’s overreaching,” he said of Roybal Caballero’s measure.

Although Garcia said he planned to support the bill in a committee vote, he said he was not sure he would vote for the bill if it reached the House floor without some major changes.

This article first appeared in The Santa Fe New Mexican, the sister paper of the Taos News.