“We are not doing this to set any sort of example or to judge anyone else’s business practices. Every business knows what they can or can’t afford,” Cris Eddings, managing partner of those restaurants, said. “We’re doing this because we feel like within our specific company, it’s the right thing to do. We can’t expect our highly valued employees to work for minimum wages that are set by ?somebody else.”
Eddings said staff has always been paid well, very often above minimum wage, but the new minimum wage hopes to ensure the 200 employees of the companies will be able to make a decent living and rapidly climb the wage ladder.
“It’s only common sense for us to do something like this. And quite frankly, we wish we would have done this a long time ago,” he said. “We want those people to be able to make enough money to eat in the restaurant that employs them.”
Christopher Edwards, a junior majoring in management information ?systems and a cook at FIVE, said the increase has made his coworkers more inclined to stay and has attracted potential employees.
“I feel really good about it. It means that I can pay my rent and everything really easily now,” he said. “They’ve always treated their employees very well, as far as I’m concerned. With this pay increase, it just really shows they care ?about their employees and they appreciate everything we do for them.”
Bradley Tipper, who graduated from the University in the spring with degrees in ?economics and political science, previously interned at the Alabama Policy Institute and is now working in Washington, D.C. During his time with API, Tipper wrote an op-ed criticizing attempts to increase the federal minimum wage.
An increase at that level, he said, would threaten the entry-level positions that employees often need to succeed further down the line.
“When you cut out those entry level ?positions…they don’t even have that opportunity to make it into the workforce,” Tipper said. “You can’t build experience. You can’t build a resume.”
Those entry-level jobs are often found at restaurants, and Tipper said reports of large companies internally raising minimum wages are often misleading. Additionally, he said, a Subway franchise faces the same pressure as a small ?business and could be similarly burdened by a newly increased minimum wage.
“It’s kind of frustrating to hear the media ?and policymakers use big companies as an example,” he said. “It’s going to hurt small businesses.”
What restaurants like FIVE and Chuck’s Fish are doing, Tipper said, is making a decision based on factors they have personally evaluated.
“That’s something I agree with,” he said. “The best way to regulate the markets is to let the ?markets decide for themselves – letting ?those restaurants decide for themselves.”
Eddings said the new minimum wage will cut into profits, but prices will ?not increase.
“We feel that if employee morale and ethic ?and retention can go up, then it’s certainly worth it,” he said.
