I remember very clearly what I was being paid.
So you're some sort of expert in minimum wages??

I worked as a waiter while I was in high school and college. During that timeframe, the minimum wage for tipped employees was set at 50% of the federal minimum wage. If you do the correct research, you'll find that tipped employees have not enjoyed the same relative minimum wage protections for the classes of people you cared to mention.

We were unionized, but our union was only good at collecting our dues.

Did you know that until recently (circa 2014), the federal minimum wage for waiters was $2.13?

When I was waitering the federal minimum wage was $3.35/hr and it was $2.01/hr for tipped employees (60% of the normal minimum wage).

There was a push back then (1985) to raise the tipped minimum wage to $3.35 and nearly all tipped employees were against it. The reason was simple -- we made FAR more than that from tips (I averaged $16/hr in tips at a Village Inn and we had some waitresses that averaged well over twice that) and we wanted the ability to work more than 40 hours a week. Since our overtime rate was only $3.02/hr, most places with tipped employees would let them work all the hours they wanted to. I almost always worked 60 hours a week (sometimes 80). I also worked several non-tipped jobs in those days and every one of them (including Village Inn) was very careful to never let you get any overtime. So the last thing that we wanted was for the government to come in and "save us" from our evil employers since, in my case, it would have reduced my income by 30%.

 

You should have qualified your original statement. And, yes, I am a stickler for accurate historical fact as opposed to what seems like an exaggerated claim.

That's why I said "around" and "about". I didn't mean for it to be an exhaustive commentary on historical minimum wages; which, FWIW, also vary by state. I also neglected to include my tip income which I didn't feel was significant. I was too young and naive at the time to know that I could ask for higher pay if my tips didn't bring my overall wages to the federal minimum. Not that I would have done it because the person I'd be asking more money from was also the person who scheduled the number of hours I worked and made hiring and firing decisions. Most times I made more than the federal minimum; sometimes I didn't.

Still, the salary information I provided was to answer the OP's query. It had nothing to do with the thread topic.