Joshua Chaisson, the gay founder and leader of the Restaurant Workers of America, a national nonprofit group that advocates for employees of dining, drinking, and entertainment establishments, is urging LGBTQ rights advocates to join efforts to oppose a little-noticed provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus package that would end the “tipped wage” system in the nation’s restaurants, bars, and nightclubs.
The provision to end the tipped wage system is attached to the president’s widely publicized proposal in his stimulus package to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over a phased in period.