NEW YORK (PIX11) — Restaurant workers, Broadway performers and a labor advocacy group came together Monday night at an event to push for an end to the subminimum wage in New York state.
Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said that restaurant workers who collect tips are only required to be paid $10 per hour. If the tips collected don’t get workers up to the state minimum wage of $15, the employers are supposed to make up the difference.
However, that doesn’t always happen, according to Kristen Carbone, who has worked in restaurants. “It’s a very unstable working situation,” Carbone said.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James held a rally Monday calling for the state minimum wage to increase from $15 to $21.25.
“These individuals are struggling to make ends meet in a city that is becoming more and more expensive, and that’s why we need to raise the minimum wage,” James said.
“We need policy in Albany to make this a level playing field, to have everybody go up,” Jayaraman said.
