Legislation is currently moving through both houses that would require car wash workers to be paid the minimum wage. But a funny thing happened on it’s way toward passage. The bill was amended by the Assembly’s Labor Committee Chair Marcos Crespo to only include car wash workers in New York York City. The original legislation called for wage protections statewide. Here is the original language:
“Car wash worker” means any employee primarily engaged in the
washing, vacuuming or general cleaning of motor vehicles. “Car wash
worker” shall not include volunteers engaged in the washing of cars for
fund raising or other charitable purpose.”
And here is the amended version:
“Car wash worker” means any employee in a city with a population
of one million or more primarily engaged in the washing, vacuuming or
general cleaning of motor vehicles. “Car wash worker” shall not include
volunteers engaged in the washing of cars for fundraising or other charitable purpose.”
The question is why would Crespo do that? He declined to comment, but sources say the change came at the behest of former State Senator and Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello who is a partner at a Buffalo based lobbying and communications firm. One of their clients is Delta Sonic, a car wash chain that has nearly 20 locations throughout Central and Western New York. The President of Delta Sonic is Ronald Benderson who is a from a prominent Buffalo real estate family. Delta sonic and the New York State Car Wash Association have made no secret of their efforts to prevent their business chain from paying workers the minimum wage.
When New York State passed the minimum wage increase in 2016, car wash workers were exempt because they were considered tipped workers. Crespo’s legislation would undo that. Originally the State Department of Labor was looking into how to include car wash workers as recipients of the higher wage, but the Cuomo Administration quietly dropped that effort two months ago, setting up the need for legislation. On it’s website, the New York State Car Wash Association ( of which Delta Sonic is a member ) wrote in March,
According to our lobbyist, Bill Crowell, there may have been several external forces that played a key role in the DOL decision to back away from the proposed regulations, however, a key factor was that the NYSCWA helped keep the impact of their regulations as job killers in New York State in the forefront of conversations with legislators and the DOL.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union, which represents many of the workers, has been pushing to get this done for years, but didn’t seem to want to upset the apple cart and declined to comment. One labor source told us however, that while the union would prefer to have the higher wages for car wash workers all across the State, they are hoping the bill will at least be amended again to include workers in Long Island and Westchester.
We shall see.