Opponents of a Minimum Wage Hike Have Graduated to Openly Lying
In DepthIf you know your argument that restaurant owners universally revile the idea of an increased minimum wage is complete bullshit, that’s still OK! You can just make shit up, as one of the main restaurant industry lobbyists recently did.
Lobbyist-mercenary and aspiring Nazgul Richard Berman recently launched Faces of 15, a shill website devoted to drumming up scare quotes about how terrible a minimum wage hike will be for his corporate backers small businesses. There’s just one problem: several of the restaurants whose images Berman used as examples of businesses hurt by and opposed to a minimum wage hike are, via PRWatch, actually in favor of Fight for $15—and were not pleased he’d been using their images without consulting them. All told, at least four of the 21* scrolling images on Faces of 15 support Fight for 15. When the Center for Media and Democracy contacted Seattle-based The Walrus & the Carpenter (the progenitor of that lovely lead image), for instance, co-owner Jeremy Price told them they “were not aware” they were being used as fodder in a shill campaign. He went on to say:
“In point of fact, Walrus voluntarily adopted the $15/hr wage a few years ahead of Seattle’s min wage ordinance,” said Price. “It has been a positive change for our staff and our business. We expect others to follow our lead here in Seattle over the next 6 months.”
Well done, The Walrus & the Carpenter. Also, your food looks delicious.