- Michigan House of Representatives is creating a new committee to help small businesses around Michigan.
- The Select Committee on Protecting Michigan Employees and Small Businesses was formed with the sole focus of addressing tipped-wage and earned sick time legislation.
- Video shows State Representatives Kathy Schmaltz and Ranjeev Puri talking about the minimum wage and earned sick time bills and the impact it will have on neighbors.
The Michigan legislature could make changes to minimum wage updates in the state and earned sick time law.
Speaker of the House Matt Hall announced Thursday a special committee that would solely focus on the tipped wage and earned sick time legislation.
Changes coming to tipped wages statewide mean servers and bartenders will earn a higher minimum wage.
We've heard from people on both sides of the issue, but servers and bartenders came to the capitol last month and told us this change would leave them with smaller paychecks.
They fear customers won't tip as much if servers earn a higher minimum wage.
Changes to sick time in the state create new requirements that employers didn't have to offer before.
Republican State Representative Kathy Schmaltz from Jackson said she's ready to fast-track bills rolling back these changes to tipped wages and sick time as soon as possible.
"We're going to bring in businesses, we're going to have employees talk about how much the tipped wages mean to them, why they need it. I talked to so many of them. They need it to help pay their bills," Schmaltz said.
With the state house now under republican control, the bills can pass without support from Democrats. but Democratic Leader Ranjeev Puri said Democrats are open to discussion on the bills.
"We know that there are opinions in all directions on this topic. It's early, it's day one so we do are willing to be fair and having of those conversations, our caucus to see where they are at and form our opinions from there," Puri said.
15 lawmakers, nine Republicans, and six Democrats will serve on the committee.
The state senate has also introduced bills on this topic.
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