By Jim Tricoli
AMHERST TIMES
Let me take a moment to applaud Molly and William Koessler for illuminating the Trump tax plan promise that lowering the marginal taxes for small businesses will trickle down to their hourly employees. The local power couple and restaurant mavens made the front page of The Buffalo News for lowering the $13.06 hourly living wage at William K’s at the location leased from the City of Buffalo to the $7.50 minimum hourly wage for the service staff of waiters and waitresses.
They must think that the only reasonable response to just having their federal tax burden reduced by 40 percent is to reduce the hourly wages of employees by 43 percent. They must be taking their cues from the Trump administration on labor relations.
More galling is that this was done with the approval of Buffalo’s Common Council and recently re-elected Mayor Byron Brown, and against the recommendations of the City of Buffalo’s Living Wage Commission.
There are good reasons the city has a living wage ordinance – to stop predatory labor practices by employers who think that they can do as they please regardless of the law. This is the same crew of ensconced Democrats who are still trying to figure out how Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election. From top to bottom: #clueless.
Buffalo diners or voters won’t easily overlook or forgive them. The Koesslers’ restaurants won’t be getting my dollars again. Buffalo voters, the ball is in your court.
Jim Tricoli is editor of the Amherst Times.
Originally published on Amherst Times. Republished with permission.
All WNY is made possible thanks to coffee and sleep deprivation.
We appreciate your readership. We like money, too.