Ohio bars and restaurant workers push back against $15 minimum wage

Ohio bars and restaurant workers push back against $15 minimum wage

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
For whatever reason. It's like,as we're getting ready for the show today,
I just saw this as right beforewe were coming on the air,
and it's been out there, Iguess for a little bit, but I
don't. Did you see what EddieVedder from Pearl Jam said over the weekend
he was playing a show. PearlJam played a show in Las Vegas at

(00:24):
the MGM Grand Garden Arena, andthat's where a lot of the big acts
that will come to town in LasVegas kissed their residency. You know what.
Gosh, I don't even know.I know they were there for like
two or three years doing a residency. Oh no, no, no,
no, well, I no,I don't. Bruno mars Is like does

(00:46):
like batches of shows there. Well, he lives in Vegas, doesn't hear.
I think he has a house inMiami and a house in Vegas.
I think he he definitely has aplace there, and then he does.
I don't. I don't know ifyou want to call that a residency or
whatever. But Pearl Jam played thereover the weekend and so it's out there
on YouTube now. But Eddie Vedder, you know, decided, I guess

(01:08):
in the middle of the concert tostart ripping Harrison Butker, which you know
right now is you know, he'sthe easy target for a lot of these
these liberal left leaning you know,live in a bubble types. Oh wait,
wait, hold on, I thinkI may have Is this something about
questioning his masculinity? Well that waspart of it. Yeah, all right,

(01:30):
but this the story that I justsaw with this. I didn't watch
the actual video, but the storyI just saw with this was uh yeah
earlier today at like yeah, it'sjust a couple of hours ago was posted.
I'm on a huff post looking atit. But anyway, he goes
on to talk about, you know, making fun of Harrison Butker's you know,

(01:53):
and I'm so tired of reading itreferred to as controversial commencement speech.
What is controversial about what he said? I don't understand why they're labeling this
controversial. He celebrated his wife andsaid that his wife said she felt her
true calling when they settled down andhad a family. I mean, listen,

(02:15):
he called out, uh yeah,yeah, oh wait, you have
the Eddie Vedder clip Zach. Okay, well hang on, so yeah he
he uh yeah, I mean,I don't think we really need to recap
exactly what Harrison said, because Ithink at this point it's all over the
place, and I think a lotof people probably know exactly. I'm just

(02:37):
tired of it being referred to ascontroversial. He never once said women should
not be able to get work,women should not He was talking about his
wife and her experience. At nopoint did he say shut up and go
make me a sandwich and stay barefootand pregnant in the kitchen. That was
never uttered. But that's the spinthat's been That's exactly right. But here's
what I really think is going on. I think it's because he tracked Pride

(03:00):
Month and it's coming up. Ithink that I think the letter people Mafia
are are ones pushing this and that'swhere they're trying to call this controversial.
It's just like, hey, he'sallowed to his opinion. I'm sorry,
and as far as controversial, Idon't. Don't I disagree labeling this controversial.
They continue to do that. Eddiegoes on to say that the singer

(03:23):
Jessica and the keyboard player Patty inhis band is who is referred to.
They must not have believed that diabolicallie that women should take pride in taking
a back seat to their man.Meanwhile, Eddie's the lead singer of that
band and these girls are backing himup, which I think is actually hilarious.
Who do you think makes the mostmoney in that band? There's no

(03:46):
question about who makes the most money. It's clearly Eddie Vedder. But it's
just funny that he's trying to usethat as an example. It's like,
dude, they back you up.They're backup singers, they have a backup
role in your band, you idiot. It's unbelievable to me that, like
you tried to use that as likean example of how he and then he
goes on to he just he's like, there should be pride in homemaking,

(04:09):
whether you're a man or a woman. It's maybe one of the hardest jobs,
and you should definitely take pride init. But you should not.
You shouldn't not follow a dream becauseyou think you're going to benefit by giving
up your dreams. It's just like, where did you get a lot?
How do you estrapolate that from hiscommencement speech, which, by the way,
they go, oh my gosh,how this was not the time or

(04:32):
place. It was a commencement speech. It was at a He's a Catholic
at a Catholic college. People inthe audience agreed with him. That's what
I don't understand. Where a wouldthese people saying, oh, commencement speech
is no time or place for thisat a Catholic school. When you're a
Catholic and you share their values,it is. He also basically down he

(04:54):
downplayed butt curs position on the team. Tell me you don't know anything about
football without telling me you don't knowanything about play a vital role in a
football game. No, no,I mean he downplayed his position and then
said the masculinity of it because Harrisonnever gets hit. He never takes a
shot from anybody. Oh, EddieBetter would pee his bretches if he stepped

(05:17):
on a football field. Shut up, you stupid old hillbilly. All right,
so you have the you have theclips? That okay, all right,
Oh well this is a short andclearly we we've said more than than
we have the clip. But goahead, really, don't lose your masculinity.
The irony was that when he wassaying that, he looked like a

(05:38):
yeah, don't lose your masculinity,and then he said the irony is he
looked like an f and p yeapwhile he was saying it. Yeah,
I'm going dude, would you getgive Harrison ten seconds with you get into
a boxing ring or whatever it is. Eddie Vedder, you idiot, I
don't care if he's a kicker.I promise you that man is still an

(06:00):
NFL athlete and would beat the livinghell out of living Eddie Vedder, I
just think, I just I justcaught wind to this, and I just
I just can't understand, like whypeople keep having him to put theirselves in
this situation. And he felt theneed to say something like this again his

(06:23):
opening point, talking about a coupleof women who back him up in the
band. They don't take a backseat except to me. Such a moron,
the hypocrisy's glorious moron. Moron Ohiobars and restaurants pushing back against this

(06:43):
fifteen dollars minimum wage proposal. Youknow, as I'm looking at this and
I'm looking at this story, thereare multiple bartenders and servers that are cited
in this quoted, clearly talked toabout this whole situation that say they don't
want this, they don't want itto happen. They're afraid it's going to
mess with their money. And oneof the guys is a bartender at a

(07:10):
place near Dayton. He's like,we don't want our tips being messed with
our wages being changed. I makeeasily over thirty dollars an hour. Somebody
else who works at the refectory,which I've never been to, but I've
heard is fantastic. It's on Betheland here in Columbus, he said,
he clears forty to sixty dollars anhour. Okay, I gotta go work
for the refectory, I mean,And he worries that a change in the

(07:31):
tipping law would end up lowering hispay. There are too many variables that
can impact my pay. I don'tthink it's worth the risk. So what
this would be. They believe customerswould just tip less if they know the
minimum wage is higher. The proposedamendment would bump the wage to twelve seventy
five an hour January first of twentytwenty five, then to fifteen dollars an

(07:55):
hour January first, twenty twenty six, and then annual increases would be tied
to inflation. Tip workers would earnthe full minimum wage and it says starting
January first, twenty twenty nine,plus whatever they make in tips. But
they keep saying they don't want thismessed with because they're afraid once people know

(08:16):
they're making fifteen dollars an hour,they're going to tip less. Would that
change what you would do in thatsituation? It really might, depending on
if it's not exceptionally good service.I'm not tipping anywhere near twenty percent.
I'll tell you that if I knowyou're making fifteen dollars an hour. I
understand what they're saying. Now listen, I'm a generous tipper. My wife

(08:37):
will tell you I tip too much. But I'm also a big believer in
if you treat people well, youwill get treated well back. So I
would probably reduce my tips to tenpercent if I know they're making fifteen because
plus you've got to realize if thatgoes to fifteen, how much a restaurant's

(08:58):
going to have to increase their menuprices. That's the key right there,
and you're going to end up pricingI mean, think about places like Applebee's
or you know, Denny's or youknow, uh, well, I think
you know what I'm saying olive garden. I mean, you're right. If
it goes to fifteen dollars an hour, currently makes five twenty five plus tips,

(09:20):
and right now currently so add tendollars to that hourly roughly. Yeah,
by the by the time this getsinto full effect, you're talking about
a pretty major increase on the onthe menu. You're going to be paying
twenty seven to ninety nine for thesix ounce sirloin and you know, mashed

(09:41):
potatoes and broccoli. That's what it'sgoing to end up happening, and you're
not going to be able to tipmore, especially since we all know the
price of it of things is nevercoming back down. Once inflation hits,
it's there to stay forever. Yeah. I don't see anybody going, well,
we're going to back prices back downbecause we're now not paying X amount

(10:01):
for these products anymore to run ourbusiness or what have you. I feel
like one of two things will happen. People will back off on their tipping
and then I don't know, ifyou're a server making that kind of hourly
wage, and then the tips docome down some but you're still achieving that
thirty dollars mark, or you know, what's the difference, then if it

(10:24):
ends up being right around the same, because if I back down my side,
my part of that equation from whatyou're making hourly currently, then all
I'm doing is realy. I'm justadjusting. What does it matter to the
server where that money is coming from. I feel like that could be a
scenario. And the other scenario wouldbe with the prices going up for the

(10:46):
food people, then the restaurant's pricethe customer, the average customer that's coming
in, they're starting to price themout of coming in as free, you
know, more frequent. So nowlet's say because you can't afford to go
because of the prices, say youwere going two or three times a month,
now you back it down to oncea month. That's gonna then decrease
maybe the foot traffic. So ifthe foot traffic goes down, then the

(11:11):
frequency goes down, then the amountof money that they're going to get would
go down. Spot on. That'sexactly how That's exactly how that snowball will
end up rolling down the hill.Because I feel like, if you can't
afford to tip somebody, then gosomewhere where you don't have to tip,
which is damn near nowhere these days. But you know what I'm saying,
right, I mean, dude,you go anywhere now, anywhere, and

(11:33):
it says I'll go get like myfavorite Chinese place down here that you've seen
me eat a million times. I'llgo down there and I'll get my favorite
little dish, and that's eight seventyfive, right. Well, then every
time I go in, they alwaysask just leave tip or no tip,
and I'm like, it's album oryou're picking up a carry out and it's

(11:56):
already sitting down and anything. Ohyou did literally your chef had to cook
the food anyway. All you didwas make sure it was sitting by the
colendar and hand it to me.That's not a tip. The funniest thing
was I was reading something last nightonline where they were trying this economist analyst
was trying to argue that inflation's actuallyhow did you put inflation isn't as bad

(12:22):
as we think it is because look, now McDonald's is going to offer five
dollars meals that. What argument isthat? Yeah? But I also thought
that was temporary too, right,that's not going to be forever. They're
not going back to that Via yourpoint where we're never backing down from the
inflation. The price increases that havehappened are here to say, even when

(12:45):
Trump gets into the White House,things start to get better, interest rates
get better, the American dream becomesmore attainable. All of those things,
one after the other start to fallback into place. Do you think your
favorite restaurant is going to say announcingnew menu prices all of our food that
all of the the amount that you'regetting, it's all staying the same,

(13:09):
but we're backing the price down.Are you kidding me? That will never
happen. And for them to tryto now, I knew somebody was gonna
spend this and I could see himspinning now like, well, Target's actually
reducing prices on five thousand things.It's that's going to be man, that's
going to be the narrative. They'regonna they're gonna argue that that this actually
has caused businesses to readjust oh,Wendy's cut. Wendy's now has a three

(13:33):
dollars breakfast menu value menu, sothey actually adjusted. Yeah, it was
like two days after McDonald's announced that, Wendy's comes out and says we're doing
three dollars breakfast again, these aregoing to be temporary. This is not
sustainable. This isn't going to belike for the rest of our you know,
the next decade. Come on now. Also, on top of all
of that, Biden. I sawclips this morning of him trying to blame

(14:00):
all of the all of the businesses, saying that they are gouging customers.
Now he's trying to blame what hehas done to this economy on the saying
they're greedy. Exactly. This iswhat he did when you know, the
oil prices were through the roof andwe were we're all at the five dollars
gallon mark are right around their highfours in Ohio, and he tried to

(14:24):
spin this and say, well,that's just that's the companies being really greedy.
They don't want to give up.And now that's what he started.
I saw it. I had notseen that until recently, and now they're
setting that table for November fifth.I guarantee you listen to Donald Trump.
All Donald Trump talks about is howgreat America is, all of what our

(14:45):
potential can be, what we cando to rise above and and you know,
continue being that shining city on ahill. Joe Biden goes down to
wherever he was and gets a commencementspeech over the weekend and basically says that
to black folks, you're all victims. Jim Crow never left. America is
a racist and tolerant place, andyou've got to learn to rise and overcome.

(15:07):
One guy is optimistic and looks inAmerica with love and kindness and respect.
Another guy basically says, this placesucks and the system's rigged against you.
Hey, Jay, welcome to theshow. Thanks for listening. Guys,
these restaurant owners, they are notmaking that much money as it is.

(15:28):
I mean, my uncle owns abar restaurant western Pennsylvania, and I
was talking to him last week.The price of wings that's gone for him
has gone from sixty dollars to onehundred and twenty dollars a bag. And
I think there's ten twenty pounds ina bag. And I said, did
you raise your prices? He goes, now, I'll probably just wait until

(15:50):
next month. So that's in westernPennsylvania, So imagine what that's going here
in Ohio. And you do theminimum wage fifteen dollars an hour for a
server, Now nobody's going to beable to. I don't care how much
money you're making. No one's wantto go. No one is going to
want to go out to eat andspend one hundred and fifty dollars for a

(16:10):
family of four. Nobody. Yeah, a family of four, by the
way, at a place that serveslike wings and so on. It's not
like one hundred and fifty dollars forfamily of four and everybody's getting steak and
a really nice side and exactly yeahyeah right, yeah for sure, man,
Yeah good yeah, Jay, thanks, Yeah, really good point there,
trafficking weather together from day and night, heating