I don't think I've thought as much about something I can't vote for as Initiative 77. I would vote yes, though, and I am going to thread about why.
I will be back in D.C. for good on July 3, so I am *just* missing this. As many of you know, I am going to work for a smart-growth advocacy organization. As many of you may surmise, said organization will be in the business of pushing for a better Comprehensive Plan in the fall.
In everything I have written about housing in the past year, I have done my absolute best to counteract the (imo unfair and largely Twitter-based) claim that people who argue for a greater supply of housing think that a greater supply of housing is a silver bullet.
I have done this by listing many factors attendant to housing. One of those factors is the fact that wages have stagnated.
Like, I diligently say this in everything that I write about gentrification, because housing as we are wrangling with it now isn't *just* about housing. I can't believe in adding supply without believing in increasing wages. (I believe in both, duh.)
So, here are my anecdotes about Initiative 77: I saw the no-on-it campaign come out early and strong. I was surprised to see many of my friends, who are not typically politically engaged, going so hard on a local issue—pleasantly surprised! I love civic engagement!
I am the first to admit that even my extended social circle is not terribly diverse. That means that the people I saw posting anti-77 stuff are mostly white, financially-OK-if-not-financially-great, and absolutely in possession of social and cultural capital that reads well.
The people I know who work in service are by and large working for the kinds of bougie restaurants that I spend my money at, which I believe are operating above-board, legally, and in good faith. And I very much believe they are earning the fuck out of their tips.
But I've been skeptical and leery of tipping for a long, long time, just as A Person Who Is Interested In Policy and Affordability. I basically align with: eater.com/a/case-against…
Tipping is crazy-biased! Like, I don't have any more complex feelings on tipping than that—that it's as biased as anything and everything else and that Doug Massey's categorical inequities a thousand percent apply to tipping, too.
So from the start, you would have had a hard time convincing me that no-on-77 was an appropriate or just stance. Since no-on-77 was being pushed on my feeds by people who are on the more privileged side of those categorical inequities, I was confused. I didn't want to be an ass.
I believe in listening to workers. And I believe in data. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have spent my career doing my best to tie together lived experiences and data to support policies that my *own* lived experience says are objectively good, but politically unpopular.
In that way, Initiative 77 reminds me reminds me of just about anything smart-growthy. Building affordable housing? Politically unpopular. Charging more for parking to fund transit? Politically unpopular. Changing zoning in wealthy single-fam neighborhoods? Goddamn radioactive.
And so I've come to see paying workers more per hour—which does absolutely nothing to eliminate the tipping system—as a smart-growth issue. And we are already fighting for scraps in the housing-affordability department. 77's failure will make that even worse.
This is to say nothing of the fact that service workers should be paid more; that to not pay workers more is to side with bosses; that even the most benevolent boss is, under capitalism, ultimately motivated (understandably) by profit, and that that profit is driven by workers.
That is some big-picture context for you on my belief system and my approach to policy and labor, which is something I can talk about forever. To some of the specific reasons to vote no on 77 that I've seen:
That it's a campaign run by out-of-towners: D.C., are you fucking northeast Ohio right now? Every campaign could message better—I am sure many of you will dislike some aspects of *my* future campaigns. But miss me with your provincialism. I have little patience for this, sry.
That it's intended for chains, and D.C. doesn't really have chains: Yeah, true, probably, but should small businesses, by virtue of their smallness, be exempt from having to pay their workers more (which I see as a moral imperative for society)? Doesn't sit right with me.
Also on the chain front, when I was in D.C. the weekend before last, I overheard a bartender say, "This is for chains, and there's literally not a Denny's or an IHOP in the city, so, like, 77 is just misguided." And I almost exploded, because there *is* a Denny's, on Bladensburg.
And there is an IHOP, of course. But the Denny's reference grated at me especially, because for all the talk about how 77 is bad for workers, there's a low-key erasure of stuff that's not, like, new and bougie and adorably local *as well as* the fact that 77 would apply to...
Not just restaurant workers, in my understanding! Bellhops and hotel cleaning staff, for ex., may be paid via tipped minimum wage, iirc. I would love to double-triple confirm this, but the reporting has focused so heavily on restaurants. I get it, but it's a flattened narrative.
Which brings us to: It's bad for workers: Well, this is where lived experience can only get you so far. Just like public input, the person who is going to write an op-ed about "saving their tips" by voting no on 77 is highly self-selecting.
Absolutely listen and learn to the workers who are making their voices heard—but remember that for the thousands of hospitality workers in D.C., those voices may not be representative. In fact, *nothing* may be representative.
Which is why I understand that, while I am pretty hard-convinced by research and data like this, you may not be: epi.org/blog/seven-fac…
I truly do not believe the sky will fall if 77 passes. It will cost restaurant owners more money, yes—which I am sympathetic to but not convinced by. And some workers *will* see fewer tips. But I do think this is one of those hard things we have to do for a greater future.
As an aside, there is a lot of ostensibly worker-friendly policy in D.C. right now: for ex., paid family leave, 77, CSG's parking cashout (~disclosure, obvi). I suspect that Business is feeling a lil threatened by a more progressive council. I do not think this is a bad thing.
Finally, there are always better ways to do things. 77 may not be the ideal way to raise wages. But if D.C. has an affordability crisis, why wait for the perfect policy that everyone will be comfy with? It doesn't exist. I expect to say the same about what I will be working on.
If 77 doesn't pass, I can guarantee that in the fall I will be writing about the Comp Plan, and I will comment on stagnating wages, and I will be in the long shadow of a losing battle for a D.C., and region, that can say that it is trying to provide plenty, fairly, for all.
goodbye followers it was fun
And this—I do not believe that 77 is these goons' stopped-clock moment:
