The coronavirus pandemic has upended life for millions of Texas families across the state. Mandated closures have forced corporations and small businesses to furlough, issue layoffs, and cut hours for over 3 million Texas workers, with more than 400,000 of them in Harris County alone.
Since mid-March, with Texas restaurants and businesses shuttering due to COVID-19, millions of Texas workers and their families are losing their financial support nets, such as health insurance. Minimum wage workers, and especially service-industry workers, who struggled to make ends meet before COVID-19 are facing the biggest economic consequences. Although no one could have predicted this current crisis last session, Texas legislators had opportunities to put into place policies which would now benefit working Texans.
At a time when Texans are losing their jobs and employee-based healthcare insurance by the millions, shouldn’t our state policymakers be working to make the lives of hard-working Texans and their families, easier – not harder?
State Representative Sarah Davis (R-Houston) has demonstrated votes against working Texans. Since being elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2010, Sarah Davis has had ample opportunity to vote for improved workplace benefits and protections, but she repeatedly voted to strip away workplace benefits and protections afforded to workers and opposed increases to minimum wage.
For more than a decade, the Texas minimum wage has not budged from the federal minimum wage rate at $7.25 per hour. According to a Dallas Morning News report, Texas was home to approximately 200,000 workers making minimum wage or less and with minimum wage set at $7.25 per hour, we rank towards the bottom of all states. Many state legislatures have voted to raise the minimum wage and there is an ongoing effort to make the minimum wage floor $15 an hour.
In 2015, the Texas Legislature considered proposing a constitutional amendment establishing an increased minimum wage for Texas workers, but Sarah Davis, along with other lawmakers, ultimately voted against the bill and the measure did not pass. The proposal, HJR 26 , would put the question of increasing the minimum wage to voters to raise hourly pay from $7.25 to $10.10.
As cost of living continues to climb, many states have made strides in passing legislation to raise their minimum rates, with 21 states beginning 2020 with higher wages. There are now a total of 29 states with minimum wages greater than the federal rate.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2017, Texas had 196,000 workers, a majority of them women and above the age of 25, making at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, more than any other state. An analysis by the Center for Public Policy Priorities (CPPP) shows 2.4 million Texans would earn a pay raise if Texas raises the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour – approximately the same number of Texans who are currently without jobs, and left to wonder how they will make ends meet
Recently, fast food chains, and massive special interest and lobbyists groups for Texas restaurants and drinking establishments, like the Texas Restaurant Association PAC, have been prioritizing personal profits over the health and safety of workers. They have been heavily lobbying and urging Texas government officials to reopen restaurants and businesses across the state well before public health experts warned it was safe enough to do, and weeks before the state had reached its “predicted peak” in coronavirus cases.
These groups also have a history of donating to Texas representatives to get what they want, even when it doesn’t promote or protect the interests of working Texans and their families. Recent campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission found special interest ties between Davis and corporate restaurant buddies.
According to the National Institute on Money in Politics, a non-partisan organization which tracks campaign contributions to federal, state and local candidates across the country, Rep. Davis received hundreds and thousands of dollars from special interests groups and single-issue lobbyists groups over the years – including more than $23,000 in special interest cash from the Food & Beverage industry and almost $10,000 in contributions from the Texas Restaurant Association PAC. In addition, Davis has also received thousands of dollars in special interest contributions from the National and Texas McDonald’s Operators PAC’s, and other massive corporate restaurant chains in the state.
The Texas Restaurant Association PAC was one of many special interest groups to oppose the constitutional amendment to increase the minimum wage in committee.
Texas workers already are struggling to stay safe and healthy and protect their families during a global pandemic, yet Texas leaders, like Sarah Davis, repeatedly vote against them. In 2017, Davis motioned to table Medicaid expansion when it came up as an amendment to the budget. If passed, the state would have drawn down billions of federal dollars to cover an estimated 1.1 million low-income Texans. She also voted with fast food corporations against expanding protections for Texas workers when they get sick or hurt on the job. The bill, SB 652, let fast food corporations off the hook when workers got sick or hurt on the job. Several labor groups, including Texas AFL-CIO, Equal Justice Center, and CWA opposed the bill.
Texans are losing their jobs and doing everything they can to stay afloat. Access to employment services and protections are more important than ever. Texans should be able to count on Rep. Davis and her colleagues to pass legislation to support workers through crises such as the current pandemic-caused recession.
