Boycott Restaurants Who Pay Workers Less

Caption: A poster at the 2014 Labor Day picnic at City Park in Iowa City.

Diego Rivera of Frida Kahlo Restaurant was the only business co-owner in Solon who plans to pay whatever the increased minimum wage is in Johnson County whether he’s forced to or not. The Solon City Council has voted, after heavy pressure from local businesses, to exempt Solon from a county-wide raise supported by Johnson County supervisors.

The hourly wage increases supported by Johnson County supervisors are minimal and long overdue. In November 2015, Johnson County’s minimum wage will rise to $8.20 an hour. In November 2016, it will rise to $9.15. In November 2017, it will increase to $10.10. According to Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI), even $10.10 an hour isn’t enough for Iowans to live on. Workers need at least $14.69 an hour to make a living wage.

Solon is a well-to-do community. The Solon Community School District has the third lowest rate of students receiving free or reduced price lunches in the state, according to Nate Willems. Solon has no good reason to cheap out on low-wage workers, and I, for one, refuse to support their efforts.

So from now on, Frida Kahlo, assuming co-owner Diego Rivera follows through on his promise, is the only restaurant I plan to patronize in Solon. In mid-August, we celebrated a family birthday with our grown children and their significant others at Big Grove Restaurant in Solon, but that was before the Solon City Council vote. We won’t be going to Big Grove again until they take a stand for low-wage workers. None of the news articles I read about the Solon City Council vote mentioned Big Grove’s stand for or against the increase in the minimum wage.

I’m so glad I didn’t spend a dime in Solon when RAGBRAI passed through. A thunderstorm unnerved us with thunder and lightning, and we rode into Solon wet and soggy, crowded in narrow streets and hindered by incompetent traffic control. Big Grove had a huge beer tent outside, which had no appeal for me, a non-beer drinker, and the entire area was too noisy and chaotic. After chatting with an acquaintance in the rain, I kept moving.

The owner(s) of Big Grove also own Red’s Ale House in North Liberty. Recently I stopped going there because they can’t make a recognizable gin and tonic, or at least, they couldn’t the last time I went there, even after I sent the first one back. Now I have another reason not to go there.

Boycotts are appropriate when restaurant owners won’t pay their workers a living wage. I can’t remember the last time I went to a fast-food restaurant.

Recently, fast-food restaurants decided to use cage-free eggs and I rejoiced. They decided to buy antibiotic-free meat and I celebrated. But I still won’t go there because fast-food restaurants don’t pay their workers a living wage.

It’s good that Johnson County supervisors increased the minimum wage in Johnson County as a fig leaf to cover their own largesse that they give themselves and their fellow county honchos each year. The supervisors’ raises are still much bigger than what most workers receive, and I’m not sure they deserve them. But the increase to low-wage workers to approach a living wage is a step in the right direction. The Solon City Council and most Solon businesses blew it by exempting themselves from it.