Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Michigan Supreme Court hears oral arguments Thursday morning on a 2018 ballot initiate to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour, which the state legislature ultimately approved it itself, but amended it to increase wages for tipped workers who currently earn $3.84 an hour.

“This case has been winding its way through the court literally since 2018, with this fight over how the legislature amended the ballot initiative. The legislature amended the ballot initiative and then the people who put the ballot initiative up have been suing ever since,” says Brighton native John Sellek, spokesperson for Save MI Tips, a pro-tipped worker organization supporting severs and bartenders who want to keep the current system.

“The fight is over the timing of when they amended it,” he added. “There’s one argument that says they needed to wait until the next year to amend it, because it was a citizen-initiated law. There’s another argument that says they’re the legislature, they can amend laws whenever they want. That’s what they do.”

Sellek and others argue tipped workers stand to earn less in the long run, or possibly lose their jobs altogether if businesses are forced to pay more for labor, and pass those added costs onto customers.

“This is the last stop in the legal journey. We probably won’t get a decision until sometime early next year,” he says.