House committee opens hearings on minimum wage, sick leave initiatives

A Republican-led committee opened hearings Tuesday on bills that would scale back parts of initiatives to increase the state minimum wage and guarantee workers paid sick leave. The goal is to send bills to the House floor as soon as this week.

The special committee is focused specifically on initiatives to set the same state minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped workers and to allow all workers to bank earned sick leave, which will both take effect Feb. 21 due to a Michigan Supreme Court decision. The court held a Republican-controlled Legislature skirted the Michigan Constitution when it adopted the petition initiatives in 2018 to keep them off the ballot and then amended them after the November election.

The Supreme Court set a schedule to bring the minimum wage and earned sick leave laws up to date. Many businesses say these provisions are onerous. And restaurant owners and tipped workers showed up to warn of reduced hours, layoffs and business failures if the laws aren’t changed.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in Monroe or Marquette, Detroit or rural Michigan, it impacts everybody, it hits everybody hard, which is why it’s important that we fix it, said Rep. Bill G. Schuette (R-Midland), who chairs the special committee.  

But advocates say those fears are overblown, and the wage and sick leave laws should take effect as the campaigns and the voters who signed the petitions intended.

Monique Stanton is with the Michigan League for Public Policy, a human services advocacy organization. She told the committee the proposed changes would come at a cost to workers.

“It would prevent nearly 1.5 million Michigan workers from being guaranteed earned sick time,” she said. “So, we’re talking about leaving 1.5 million people out of the ability to take time off if they have norovirus or their kid has pink eye.”

The committee has another meeting planned for Thursday, when the bills could be voted to the House floor. The legislation would have to be put on a fast track to be enacted before the wage and sick leave laws take effect next month.

Anything adopted by the House would also have to be agreed to by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. They would also have to be signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.