| Abbreviation | OFW |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Humanitarian |
| Location | |
| Website | onefairwage |
One Fair Wage is a nonprofit non-governmental organization in the United States that is led by Saru Jayaraman for restaurant workers to end the sub-minimum wage for tip workers who make less than the minimum wage before tips.
The One Fair Wage campaigns to improve tipped wage laws by advocating for higher wages in a number of states including Washington, D.C. [2] California and six other states already have One Fair Wage. [3] [4] One Fair Wage, chaired by Alicia Renee Farris, is trying to raise the minimum wage in Michigan to $12 an hour by 2022, and to $12 an hour by 2024 for tipped workers. [5] [6] [7] The issue was brought to the General Election ballot on the November 2018. [8] [9] [10] The Michigan Chamber of Commerce opposed the plan. [11] In 2020, following the COVID-19 crisis, One Fair Wage began campaigning to raise money for restaurant wage workers who lost their jobs due to restaurant closures. [12] [13]
In January 2023, One Fair Wage and the New York Times [14] exposed the National Restaurant Association for using worker-funded food training program ServSafe to lobby against workers pay increases at the state and federal levels. As a result, the California State Senate has passed legislation [15] to require employers to pay for the training, not workers, and is now headed to a vote in the Assembly.
From the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is this wage info (includes tips):
| Percentile | 10% | 25% | 50% (Median) | 75% | 90% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly Wage | $ 8.94 | $ 11.43 | $ 15.36 | $ 20.00 | $ 28.89 |
| Annual Wage [lower-alpha 1] | $ 18,600 | $ 23,770 | $ 31,940 | $ 41,600 | $ 60,100 |
The U.S. House Oversight and Accountability Committee is investigating the IRS's treatment of One Fair Wage (OFW), to determine if it has received undue tax benefits as a non-profit organization. The investigation, led by Rep. James Comer, centers on whether OFW’s significant lobbying activity, which is prohibited for tax-exempt charities, conflicts with its status under 501(c)(3). In a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Comer cited OFW's public acknowledgment of its lobbying mission and called for a review of the IRS’s handling of non-profits, requesting correspondence with OFW and related training materials by February 28. [17]
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