Missouri House backs exceptions to minimum wage

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Lawmakers gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that would limit wages for tipped employees while attempting to clarify how a voter-approved increase to the state's minimum wage affects fire and police departments.

Voters in 2006 overwhelmingly approved an initiative that increased the state minimum wage to $6.50 an hour, with an annual increase to coincide with inflation. This year, the state's minimum wage is set at $6.65.

Nothing in the House legislation would change that basic rate. But the bill does change how the measure would apply to various professions.

The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations originally advised on a Web site that tipped employees were due only the federal minimum of $2.13 an hour, as long as their tips pushed their total pay to at least the minimum wage. But Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ruled last May that the new law entitled them to a base pay of at least half the minimum wage -- currently, $3.325 an hour.

Rep. Shannon Cooper, R-Clinton, said that the higher wages are making it harder for restaurants to stay in business and forcing them to hire fewer employees. His amendment would return the base pay to tipped employees to the federal floor.

Other Republican supporters of the bill said tipped employees have told them that even though their base pay is higher because of the higher minimum wage, their take-home pay isn't increasing. That's because employers are hiring fewer workers, making it harder to provide good service and limiting tips.

Democrats objected to lowering the base wage for tipped employees.

Rep. Jeff Roorda, D-Barnhart, said it's unfair to restaurant employees to lower their wages and disrespectful to the voters who passed the 2006 ballot measure.

The House gave initial approval to the bill 95-50, but it needs another vote before moving to the Senate. Lawmakers have until May 16 to pass legislation.

The House bill also seeks to clarify another court ruling.

The 2006 minimum wage law was challenged by counties, cities and fire districts that argued that the law made it unclear whether local governments could continue applying a federal standard that allows police officers and firefighters to work more than 40 hours a week without earning overtime in exchange for more days off.

Federal guidelines allow police to work 171 hours and firefighters up to 212 hours in a 28-day work period without getting overtime.

Earlier this year, a Cole County judge ruled that the increased minimum wage cannot apply to county and municipal employees because the new pay scale applies to an "individual, partnership, association, corporation, business, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons." Circuit Judge Richard Callahan decided that doesn't include local governments.

Cooper's amendment seeks to put into state law a reference to the federal rules allowing the overtime exemption for certain workers.