Class Warfare for Dummies: Florida Bill Would Reduce Tipped Workers' Minimum Salary to $2.13 an Hour

Here's a proposed law that Willard Romney would absolutely love...until some aggrieved waitress spit on his filet mignon before serving it to him. The Orlando Sentinel has the gruesome details:

A bill that would cut the hourly wages of many waiters and waitresses was unveiled Tuesday by a Florida Senate committee in Tallahassee.

The bill would slash Florida's minimum wage for tipped workers — now $4.65 an hour — to the federal tipped minimum of $2.13 for companies that agree to guarantee that with wages and tips their employees will make at least $9.98 an hour.

The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association is urging legislators to pass the bill. The trade group says Florida's tipped minimum is crippling eateries financially, causing companies to cut back workforces and open fewer restaurants in Florida.

Combined with rising costs of food, insurance and implementing the new federal health-care law, "it's going to be a matter of time before the back of this industry breaks," said Carol Dover, chief executive officer of the trade group. "Minimum wage is killing them."

First of all, if these companies really do have to "guarantee" their employees will make $9.98 an hour with tips, then what is the point of reducing the base salary in the first place? You don't suppose there would be massive fudging on that amount do you? No...perish the thought. Secondly, if these restaurants can't afford to pay their wait staff a measly base salary of $4.65 an hour, then they a likely not going to last a whole lot longer anyway.

Call this what it is: yet another attack on low wage service workers by scumbag corporations at a time when these kinds of menial jobs represent a large portion of what is still available out there for workers. It's appalling that these companies want to be able to pay an employee less per hour than the cost of a gallon of gasoline. This is class warfare at its finest, a perfect metaphor at a time in which the front runner for the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties is a multimillionaire vulture capitalist who has openly professed that he doesn't care about poor people.

In case you want to know the identity of one of the major companies supporting this hideous bill...you know, so maybe you can extend a big ol' middle digit in their direction the next time you drive past one of their locations, I'm here to serve, so to speak:

Tampa-based OSI Restaurant Partners, supports the bill, Dover said. The company, which owns Outback Steakhouse, did not respond to a request for comment.

In that case I have a comment for Outback Steakhouse: shove your horrible bloomin' onions where the sun don't shine.


Bonus: Here's a little number that is GENUINELY Australian, unlike the Outback Steakhouse