By Michael Lastoria
US Department of Labor Blog, December 7, 2016
&pizza is a company that has been, and will continue to be, built on the shoulders of our employees. Fair pay is a vital ingredient to our company’s success, culture, and the wellbeing of all 490 members of what we call our “tribe.”
That is why we provide a starting wage significantly above the minimum.
On Nov. 8, ballot measures raising the minimum wage passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington state. And earlier this year, we strongly supported the passage of Washington D.C.’s minimum wage increase. Those increases are excellent progress, but more must be done.
We plan on being at the forefront of the fight for additional state and federal raises because we’ve seen firsthand the business benefits of paying fair wages.
Since our founding in 2012, we’ve grown rapidly in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and soon will be opening our first location in New York City.
We’ve never seen a truly successful business where the employees didn’t feel appreciated, engaged and supported. It’s a simple, but critical, concept: take care of your people and they will take care of your customers.
Like many other businesses across the country, we understand that raising the minimum wage makes good business sense. As stated in the Business for a Fair Minimum Wage statement we signed, “Workers are also customers. Minimum wage increases boost sales at local businesses as workers buy goods and services they could not afford before. And nothing drives job creation more than consumer demand.”
&pizza believes strongly in communicating these benefits to the public and other businesses — to show people how businesses thrive with a fair-wage, low-turnover business model. On Nov. 21, we had the pleasure of meeting with Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and Deputy Secretary Christopher Lu to discuss why &pizza pays living wages, what it means for our bottom line, and how it impacts our employees, our guests and the communities we’re located in.
Employee Jayson Harmon, who had a chance to meet (and make pizza with) Secretary Perez and Deputy Secretary Lu, put it this way: "Working for &pizza, and earning a fair wage, has allowed me to grow and have more opportunities to do things I otherwise wouldn’t be able to do if I was earning the bare minimum. I’ve been able to work and live the way I want to because I’ve been paid a fair wage. Being able to share my story with the secretary of labor today shows me that people are listening to what we’re saying as living examples of what a fair wage can do.”
Committed, loyal employees like Jayson are the reason we’ve been so successful. That success has been wonderful for all of us who are part of the &pizza family, but we want all Americans to be able to support themselves and their families through earning fair wages.
Paying fair wages is the right thing to do — from an economic standpoint and a moral one. When we, as business owners and our elected representatives, raise the wage, we raise up people — and with them our entire country.
Michael Lastoria is the co-founder and CEO of &pizza. He is a member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage.
Copyright 2016 Michael Lastoria