Michigan Supreme Court Brings Back Higher Minimum Wage, Paid Leave Laws

The Michigan Supreme Court has shot down an effort by Republican lawmakers to weaken minimum wage and paid leave laws that voters were set to pass by ballot initiative six years ago.

The ruling means Michigans wage floor is likely to rise to above $12 next year and continue rising each year according to inflation. The state will also begin phasing out its tipped minimum wage, which allows restaurants and other employers to pay workers less if they earn gratuities.

Meanwhile, a requirement allowing workers to earn paid sick leave will apply to employers across the state, including small businesses.

Worker advocacy groups had rounded up signatures to put those proposals before voters in 2018. But the Republican majorities in the statehouse voted to adopt those measures in order to keep them off the ballot then voted to water them down in ways that pleased business groups.

The maneuver, known as adopt and amend, thwarted the will of the people, the court found.

Such an act violates the peoples right to propose and enact laws through the initiative process under the state constitution, the four Democratic justices wrote in their opinion, authored by Justice Elizabeth M. Welch. As a result, the two laws Republicans passed to weaken the ballot initiatives were unconstitutional.

The courts three Republicans all dissented.

One Fair Wage, an advocacy group that seeks to abolish the tipped minimum wage, cheered the courts ruling. The group was among those gathering signatures for the 2018 ballot initiatives.

We have finally prevailed over the corporate interests who tried everything they could to prevent all workers, including restaurant workers, from being paid a full, fair wage with tips on top, Saru Jayaraman, the groups president, said in a statement.  

Under the sick leave law, workers can accrue an hour of paid leave for every 30 they work. The measure Republicans passed to weaken it exempted employers with 50 or fewer workers, and added more stringent caps on how much time could be accrued and used.

Because the fight took years to resolve, the justices had to address the fact that the scheduled increases laid out in the original proposal were already out of date. So they decided to make the law effective next February, with the scheduled increases adjusted according to inflation.

The justices said employers couldnt be faulted for following the weaker minimum wage and sick leave measures that Republicans tried to institute.

The Legislature, not employers, was responsible for the constitutional mischief known as adopt-and-amend, they wrote.