Higher pay for restaurant workers could be on the ballot next year

Advocates for restaurant workers said they have gathered enough signatures to secure a statewide ballot measure next year to raise the minimum wage for tipped service workers.

In Massachusetts, the minimum wage for most workers was raised to $15 per hour early this year, but restaurant workers make less than half that, at $6.75 an hour. Tips are meant to make up the rest of their income.

The One Fair Wage campaign on Monday reported gathering 108,000 signatures, exceeding the 75,000 required. The group is a national organization working to boost pay for workers earning below minimum wage.

"Tipped workers are doing so much for this economy, for our families, and they cannot take care of their own," U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley said at a press event Monday evening in support of the measure. "I want you to know that I give a damn about your livelihood, but I care that much more about your lives."

Pressley and former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy joined local restaurant owners and advocates at the downtown event. Participants highlighted three local restaurants — Mei Mei Dumplings in South Boston, Comfort Kitchen in Dorchester and Mamaleh's in Cambridge — that say they already pay their employees a full minimum wage.

"We work hard as any other industry, and yet we get the short end of the stick," said Biplaw Rai, managing partner of Comfort Kitchen. "Why is our industry so behind in raising minimum wage?"

Rai added that most restaurant workers can not afford health insurance and other vital services for their families.

Opposition to the measure comes from the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, which argues that restaurant owners cannot sustain higher wages for their workers.

In September, when lawmakers on Beacon Hill were discussing a measure to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $20 by 2027, the restaurant association's president, Steve Clark, told WBUR, "We continue to add the cost to the restaurant and then the buying power of the public continues to diminish." He added, "So we're kind of in this circle of increased costs and increased wages."

The new ballot measure aims to ensure that restaurant workers start out with the state minimum wage and can receive tips on top of that. The Secretary of State's Office must certify the signatures, a process that can take several weeks.