Councilor said she never thought colleagues would try to ‘take away pay from workers’ during push to update min. wage law

When a city councilor who represents some of the most impoverished areas of the city recently tried to update the city’s minimum wage law, she inadvertently created an opportunity for one of her colleagues to lower the city’s minimum wage for tipped employees. 

Councilor Nichole Rogers in an interview with City Desk ABQ said she was taken aback when Councilor Renée Grout suggested amending Rogers’ bill, completely changing the bill’s intention.

“I would have never thought that they would use my trying to make sure we have accurate laws on the books, which is my intention, and use it to take away pay from workers,” Rogers said. 

At the request of Mayor Tim Keller’s administration, Rogers sponsored a proposal to update the city’s minimum rate of $8.50 to the state’s minimum wage rate of $12.00 — which Albuquerque workers already earn per state law. Early on in the debate, Rogers tried to withdraw her bill after learning language about enforcement needed some work. But before she could pull the bill from consideration, there was a call to make some changes.  

Grout proposed amending the proposal to lower Albuquerque’s tipped minimum wage to match that of the state’s. Grout’s amendment would have kept the city’s minimum wage at $12 per hour, but tipped employee wages would have dropped to $3 from the current rate of $7.20 per hour. 

Rogers was not on board with Grout’s proposal but local restaurant owners were. 

Numerous restaurant owners, along with New Mexico Restaurant Association CEO Carol Wight, told councilors that servers make significantly more than kitchen staff and — in some cases — managers. Wight and others from the restaurant industry argued lowering the tipped rate would allow restaurants to increase pay for other employees.

Grout said at the meeting she understood both sides but the employees “in the back of the house that are scrubbing the floors deserve to be paid better.” 

“I think that sometimes we want to mirror what the state is telling us to do and then other times we don’t. I am not understanding why one time it’s okay and then another time it’s not,” Grout said. “We need to be business friendly and we need to be encouraging.” 

After a heated discussion, the proposal was deferred on a 5-4 vote until the council’s next meeting on Aug. 19. 

Rogers said if the councilors want to align the city’s rate for tipped workers with the state’s rate, they would “instantly remove almost $8,000 per year from working families’ pockets.” 

“With rising costs of everything and homelessness has doubled, this would only make that worse,” Rogers said. “We don’t have time to play games and we shouldn’t play games because these are people’s lives. I am not interested in having my name on something that removes pay from workers, period.”

While Albuquerque is the biggest city in New Mexico and has higher living costs than some other cities, Rogers said she would advocate for the same thing in Española or Las Vegas. 

“I think the bottom line is that would be catastrophic for our community…There’s no right time to take pay away from people,” Rogers said. “People in this role in the previous city councils made this that way for a reason, and that I think should stand.” 

The debate is expected to pick back up on Aug. 19 when the council convenes for its next meeting.