ERIE, OH— A small, family-owned Erie cafe is changing how people think about compensation in the coffee industry. In what they’re calling the Dying Wage Project, they have made a public pledge to pay each of their nine employees as little as is legally allowed, even knowing that over time, this will erode their mental and physical health, leave them no safety net in the event of emergencies, and, essentially, slowly kill them.
“We aren’t just doing this because we feel it’s the right thing to do,” co-owner Martin Stiene told The Knockbox in an exclusive interview. “We’re doing this to make a point, publically, about what our workers are worth to us.”
“We value our workers immensely,” added co-owner Lorraine Stiene. “So much that we believe they can use their smarts and bodies to make up the difference in what they make at our shop and what they need to live. If they truly want to continue existing, I believe that they will take the initiative to find better, higher-paying jobs over time, as my husband and I have done, in order to keep from dying.”
Outside the shop, we asked some customers what they thought about the new initiative.
“I think it’s courageous,” said Matteo Lawrence, who lives in the neighborhood. “If the baristas want to not die, they should go back to school and then get a better job.”
“I think it’s harsh but fair,” teacher Willa Harris said. “Why should these workers get to make enough to live when I, a teacher with a master’s degree, only make fifty thousand dollars a year?”
Like it or not, the Dying Wage Project makes a strong statement about what one company thinks barista’s lives are really worth.
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