Michigan Democrats are holding the livelihoods of restaurant owners and their employees hostage to force legislation bungled by House Democrats in last year’s lame duck session.

State Rep. Will Snyder, D-Muskegon, explained how it all works during a roundtable discussion on the looming crisis for tipped workers and their employers hosted by restaurateurs Ted Fricano and Diane Schindlbeck in Muskegon last month.

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Snyder was one a few House Democrats to vote for Republican legislation to amend changes to the state’s tipped wage and sick time laws that are set to go into effect on Feb. 21, triggering added expenses the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association predicts will cost the industry up to 60,000 jobs.

“I do think that something will happen at some time, whether that’s before or after Feb. 21, but I do believe there’s a realistic path,” Snyder said. “We also have to acknowledge some other outside factors of what might be holding up some negotiations, as there were nine bills that were passed during lame duck – one of them was mine – that are currently sitting in the House clerk’s office and have not been presented to the governor.

“I think Senate Dems are going to take a pretty hard stance on the presentation of those bills before moving forward,” he added. “I just think all of those are real issues we have to accept and understand.”

State Rep. Greg VanWoerkom, R-Norton Shores, disagreed with that notion.

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“Everyone in Lansing knows this is a problem, this is a crisis. We knew this in July that this was coming down,” he said, noting the issue was a major reason Republicans walked out of the lame duck session in protest. “This is an absolute crisis we see coming and don’t do anything about. That’s the frustrating part about Lansing.”

Complicating the debate by injecting other unrelated issues, he said, “is the other problem with Lansing.”

“This is a crisis and we should be negotiating about this crisis, rather than adding all these other elements,” VanWoerkom said. “This is people’s real lives, real businesses, and to start mixing up in different negotiations about completely separate topics into this when were facing this deadline is completely unacceptable.

“We need to be focusing on this, getting it done, so that these families, these businesses can stay employed and stay running,” he said. “This will upend our economy if we don’t get it done.”

House Republicans on Jan. 23 approved two bills to stop tipped employees from becoming minimum wage workers, delay a minimum wage increase by a year, and dampen the impact of changes to the state’s sick leave laws upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court last year.

Senate Democrats have ignored the legislation to instead focus on their own plan that would expedite a minimum wage hike to $15 by a year, and increase the tipped wage to 60% of the minimum wage over the next decade, with smaller tweaks to sick leave.

“The bills we have in the Senate are much better for workers, and we are continuing to focus on those,” Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, told MLive. “But I want to be clear: I will not rubber stamp a plan that takes earned sick leave away from a million Michiganders.”

Without any change, base pay for tipped workers will begin to increase annually until it reaches the standard minimum wage in 2030, while most employers will be forced to cover mandated sick leave and implement other costly changes, as well.

Servers, bartenders, and restaurant owners have warned for months the changes will result in significant menu price increases, and hurt employees who earn more than minimum wage with tips. A survey of more than 200 restaurants by the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association last year found 92% will hike menu prices by an average of 25% if the changes go into effect.

“Two-thirds of restaurant operators would lay off employees with an estimated 40,000-60,000 restaurant jobs lost. The vast majority of job loss would be concentrated amongst tipped employees,” according to the MRLA. “One-in-five full-service restaurants would close permanently.”

Brinks last week filed a lawsuit against the Michigan House of Representatives, Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Twp., and his clerk last week over nine bills bungled by a Democratic majority last year.

The bills were approved by the Senate during the waning days of the 2024 lame duck session but never moved to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk, an unprecedented situation former House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, has blamed on a “proofing and processing” delay.

All nine bills initially passed the House, and were sent to the Senate, where they gained approval during an overnight session that stretched from Dec. 19 to Dec. 20. Tate adjourned the House on the morning of Dec. 19 after all Republicans and Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, refused to vote on a slate of Democratic bills they claim would have hurt Michiganders.

Hall initiated a legal review of the legislation in limbo, but impatient Senate Democrats pressed ahead with the litigation Brinks blamed on the Republican House speaker.

“The Michigan Constitution makes it abundantly clear: every bill passed by the legislature is required to be presented to the governor – and no one -especially an elected public servant in legislative leadership – is above the law,” Brinks said in a statement.

House Republicans replied in a legal filing on Friday, when attorneys for the lower chamber made it clear the House is under no obligation to finish the work left unresolved by Democrats, and it doesn’t intend to.

“The Senate’s complaint presents a simple question: does Michigan law impose a duty on the 103^rd Legislature to present legislation passed by the 102^nd Legislature? The answer is no,” the response read.

“The Senate’s claim that the current ‘House’ has a ‘constitutional duty to present these bills to the Governor’ is wrong because: (1) the business of the 102^nd Legislature does not continue into the 103^rd; (2) a past legislature cannot bind future legislatures; and (3) Michigan’s Constitution imposes no duty to present legislation upon any specified legislative body or officer.”

There’s now 10 days until the Feb. 21 deadline for the tipped wage and sick leave changes, and any legislation to take immediate effect would require a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers, as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature, to take immediate effect, MLive reports.