D.C. Council sides with billionaires against workers

 
BY: D.C. Metro CPUSA| August 8, 2025
D.C. Council sides with billionaires against workers

 

“It’s a big, beautiful deal,” said At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, using Trump language, after the D.C. Council passed recent legislation heavily subsidizing the Washington Commanders football team to return to their stadium in the district. His comment signaled to Trump, billionaires everywhere, and MAGA Republicans in Congress, that the D.C. Council will not be resisting their agenda.

The past several months have been a grueling time since the Trump Administration returned to the White House and decided to make D.C. their personal playground.

D.C. Communists are especially outraged that our own local government jumped on the anti-democratic wave on July 28 by passing a budget that attacks workers and ignores the will of D.C. voters. While many provisions are horrendous, the one that stands out is the repeal of Initiative 82.


Some history

In June 2018, voters approved Initiative 77 by a margin of 56% to 44%. The initiative would have gradually increased the $3.33 hourly rate earned by tipped workers to match the district’s full minimum wage by 2026. In October 2018, the D.C. Council voted 8-5 in favor of repealing the initiative.

Since then, a broad coalition was built to restore it in Initiative 82, passed in 2022 by an overwhelming 74% of district voters. Initiative 82 would increase the tipped minimum wage from $5.35 in 2022 by $2 annually until it matched the minimum wage of non-tipped workers by 2027.


Two-tier wage system

On July 28, 2025, a majority (7-5) of the D.C. Council voted to amend and substantially weaken this citizen-passed measure, as part of the district’s 2026 budget. Most council members (7-5) sided with restaurant owners and against restaurant workers. The Council’s business-friendly amendment, introduced by Councilmembers Allen and Henderson, permanently freezes the current tipped minimum wage of $10 per hour until July 1, 2026. It was set to increase to $12 per hour on July 1, 2025. This tipped minimum wage will then increase to 60% of the district’s full minimum wage by 2028 and thereafter by 5% annually until it reaches only 75% of the full minimum wage of other workers when it stops increasing. Instead of guaranteeing equal pay, the Council’s amendment locks tipped workers into earning 25% less than other workers, cementing a two-tier wage system and inequality into law.

Democratic Socialist Councilwoman Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) voted against the change and said, “while I appreciate that my colleagues are attempting to address the pressures the restaurant industry is experiencing in the face of failed economics on the national level, keeping workers at a subminimum wage and overturning the will of the voters is the wrong way to accomplish this.” Groups like the Fair Price Fair Wage, Unite Here Local 25, D.C. Jobs with Justice, Washington Metro AFL-CIO, Jews United for Justice, Restaurant Opportunities Center and more have been lobbying against this effort and supported the preservation of Initiative 82. Many expressed their anger at the repeal.


The struggle is not over

The Communist Party of the District of Columbia joins with workers and allies across the D.C. metropolitan area in strongly condemning those councilmembers who voted to overturn the will of the people, along with the Mayor, who pushed to eliminate the tipped minimum wage law and reverse wages for tipped workers back down to $5.35/hr. As our elected officials work to appease big business and the MAGA White House, we must organize and strategize to meet the real needs of the working class which they have chosen to ignore.

Images: D.C. workers, union members, and advocates call on D.C. Council to pass a budget that funds the District, not the wealthy by Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO (X); Unite Here Local 25 outside the Wilson Building with UNITE HERE Local 23 and the Building Trades workers to stand up for i82, stadium workers, and good jobs by Unite Here Local 25 (X)

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