USA TODAY International Edition
COVID unmasks wages and tips
Pandemic adds to plight of restaurant workers already making the subminimum
Last month, members of Congress introduced a bill proposing a $ 15- an- hour minimum wage. Buried in the proposed legislation is a historic full phaseout of the subminimum wage for tipped workers. With the pandemic, this subminimum wage changed from being an issue primarily of racial, gender and economic injustice to one that is an even more drastic matter of survival.
Tipped workers are being hit with new threats that make the already difficult task of eking out a living more precarious — they have to enforce mask- wearing policies that anger the same customers they rely on for tips ( adding to the decrease in earnings), and reports of harassment are up.
The subminimum wage for tipped workers, which exists in 43 states and at the federal level, is a legacy of slavery. Following emancipation, white restaurant owners sought to hire Black workers as bussers and servers without paying them, forcing them to live exclusively off tips. This was made law in 1938, when the United States enacted its first federal minimum wage law yet continued to exempt restaurant workers. Today, the federal subminimum wage is $ 2.13 an hour — more than two- thirds less than the full minimum wage — and hasn’t gone up in a quarter of a century.
And while restaurant owners are supposed to make up the difference when tips fall short, the U. S. Department of Labor found that nearly 84% of restaurants investigated have violated these rules.
Today, about 70% of tipped workers are women, and tipped workers are nearly twice as likely to be poor.
As of May, nearly 6 million restaurant workers had lost their jobs due to COVID- 19. One Fair Wage, of which I am president, surveyed the 160,000 service workers who applied for the organization’s emergency funds. Between March and May, 60% faced severe challenges accessing unemployment insurance because their wages were too low to qualify.
Tipped restaurant workers are the only essential workers to not receive a minimum wage, and the only essential workers to be asked to remove their protective gear for a chance to earn their income. Restaurant workers, like those whose stories are featured below, are doing their best to help us survive this pandemic. And now, we need to help them.
Saru Jayaraman is the president of One Fair Wage, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Forked, A New Standard for American Dining.”
‘ This Is Not A ( pay) Check
I love working in restaurants, but I had to take on a second job as a substance use counselor during the coronavirus pandemic.
Working in the pandemic is scary. I have an 83- year- old grandmother I see weekly. I worry about risking her health. And what happens if there’s an outbreak at the restaurant? A lot of us live week to week. If we had to go into a 14- day quarantine, I don’t know how many of us would survive financially.
Tips are down. Way down. The restaurant has limited capacity and limited hours, causing our in- person business to decrease dramatically. Maybe people don’t know how it works, but those tips are what I live on. The subminimum wage is so low that when you take out taxes, a lot of times the paycheck literally says, “This Is Not A Check.” Now that I am bartending, it’s a little better, like the time I worked 15 hours and got a $ 64 paycheck. I count on tips, not my paychecks.
I got into the restaurant industry when I was 19, but I have stayed in the industry to try to support my family and to be able to afford to go back to college. I just graduated with my associate’s degree, and now I’m working on my bachelor’s in social and behavioral sciences.
I work at a wonderful local restaurant. The people who own it, and all the people who work there, are like family. When the pandemic hit, the restaurant closed briefly and the owners got a Payment Protection Program loan. They used it to help every single employee and get as many of us as possible back to work doing to- go orders when we were able.
In the middle of a pandemic, it’s really frustrating that we’re front- line workers but we’re getting paid less than everyone else risking their lives to help feed and take care of people in this crisis.
Chantel St. Laurent; Lewiston, Maine
‘ The risks are getting higher’
I was working at a hotel restaurant, as the assistant front of house and bar manager, when the first shutdowns happened in March. The owners offered to help guide every worker in applying for unemployment insurance.
I was one of five people who kept working — trying to keep a restaurant, hotel ( partially shut down) and an adventure business ( which stopped taking customers) managed.
I am forever grateful that the owners paid above- average wages. I made $ 11 an hour during the pandemic, with a few tips on top even though business was down. But the insane amount of work took its toll, and my kids and family needed more of my time during all the chaos.
So I found another job, as a server at a pub, making the subminimum wage of $ 2.13 an hour. Tips were always unpredictable, but the pandemic really pulled the rug out. Nine restaurant employees got COVID- 19. The owners shut everything down for two weeks.
Some people might not feel it’s worth it to go back to work for $ 2.13 an hour, especially when tips are so low and the risk is so high. But I was glad when those two weeks were over and I could go back to work.
The risks are getting higher — not just in terms of getting the coronavirus, but also in terms of desperation. We put up with poor treatment from customers in ways that we wouldn’t before. I was bartending and overheard a group of men betting about when my left boob would fall out of my jacket. Then they tried to pretend they were just joking. One of them said to me, “Take your mask off, honey. Let’s see that gorgeous smile.”
That’s something I get a lot of. These guys know we need their tips, and they’ll imply if you do what they ask, they’ll throw us more money. Living on tips and a subminimum wage ( and on top of that having fewer options because of COVID- 19) means putting up with it.
I don’t think our lawmakers would want anyone they love risking their lives only to be harassed and paid like garbage. Please have a soul and help fix this. One day your own children could be walking in my shoes.
Alyson Martinez- Diaz; Charles Town, West Virginia
‘ Relying on fickle tips’
I quit my job as a restaurant server last year. A customer refused to put on a mask, then yelled at me for doing my job when I asked him to wear one. I lost my temper. And when my manager sided with the customer, I left.
I finally found a job advocating for restaurant industry workers, pushing Congress to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour by 2025.
Working in restaurants for low wages and relying on fickle tips was hard even in the best of times. In my restaurant we did tip pooling. They were divided up equally among all of us by the hours worked. Add in the pandemic, and tips were way down.
I don’t think a lot of customers and a lot of policymakers realize how fortunate they are, and that the rest of us don’t have a safety net of family or savings to catch us. We work hard to earn what little we have, and it can all be wiped away in a minute.
John Michael Alvarez; Denver
‘ Routine harassment’
I work as a hostess and server, and the amount of bullying that guests get away with is really unacceptable — always, but especially now with being asked to wear masks. I try to be so gentle and nice about it, explaining the restaurant rules that if people are waiting inside and aren’t seated in the dining area, either they can wear a mask or they have to wait outside. We even have masks we offer them if they don’t have their own. But I get the dirtiest looks, the rudest comments.
I work is in a very affluent area. The tips can be really good. But the pandemic has not only subjected servers to routine harassment but also has ruined our tips. I’ve worked in the restaurant industry my entire adult life and never, ever, had an employer make up the difference between the subminimum wage and the full minimum wage when tips fall short.
Restaurant workers are now public health workers, enforcing these lifesaving guidelines with customers, at the same time we’re forced to rely on those very customers to feed our families and pay our rent. It’s just not fair, and it just doesn’t work. And it’s restaurant workers like me who are paying the price.
Haley Holland; Scottsdale, Arizona
‘ Instability and abuse’
I worked for tipped wages in restaurants for about seven years. I work as a concierge now. It’s more relaxed, and I feel more respected.
I was born and raised in our nation’s capital, and after going to college in West Virginia, I came back to Washington, D. C., ready and excited to start working as an actress — but realized I needed to make money. I started working in restaurants as a hostess and worked my way up to becoming a server and eventually trained as a bartender. I’ve worked in some of the top restaurants in Washington. And I’ve also done some of the same work in New York City. I really love the industry.
But I don’t like the instability and abuse. I’ve had managers who expected us to do work off the clock and if we didn’t, they’d take us off the schedule for the next week or move us to shifts with bad tips. Restaurants can be a great environment to work when you have managers who care, but I feel like the subminimum wage gives some people permission to treat us like we’re subhuman.
That goes for customers, too. I’ve had customers who wanted to touch my hair. I’ve had others, especially in Washington where a lot of businessmen come for conferences, who have been dismissive and disrespectful to Black and brown staff.
It was bad enough putting up with all of this before the pandemic. But when the pandemic hit, it became clear how much the restaurant I was working at didn’t care about any of us. They did some kind of GoFundMe for staff but didn’t share the money with everyone. I didn’t get a penny. And it turns out one of our co- workers died from COVID- 19. I found out from a co- worker, not from management. Management didn’t give what I thought was the proper amount of attention to staff after that happened. That’s when it really hit me how little they valued our work and our lives. Plus, as much as I miss some of my regular customers, the ones I really made a connection with, I was tired of the customers who acted nasty and entitled, and didn’t even have the decency to tip.
The restaurant I worked at in New York shut down in March. Like so many other restaurant workers left jobless, I had trouble getting unemployment insurance and still haven’t received all the money I’m due.
Now I work for a company that pays me a livable wage. I get benefits.
I’d love to go back to working in restaurants someday, but things would need to change. My friends who are still working in restaurants are struggling more than ever to make ends meet. And it shouldn’t be that way. These are hardworking professionals. They’re worth more than that. I’m worth more than that. And we need wage laws that respect our work and our worth.
Dominique Brown; Washington,
D. C.
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