Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2013)
street roots April 12, 2013 ^ P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F C O R N E L L U N IV E R S IT Y PRESS Behind the kitchen door Labor organizer Saru Jayaraman says that restaurants are the next front in the fight for food justice BY MIKE WOLD C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R air trade, farm-to-table, locally sourced: Restaurant menus are replete with politically correct terms, but the kitchen door conceals another struggle. Labor organizer Saru Jayaraman reveals why the treatment of restaurant workers ought to be the next front in our fight for food justice. What really goes on behind the kitchen door in a restaurant? In her book by that same title, Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and organizer for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROCU), points out that people in the food movement, which has been effective in advocating for changes in the way we produce and consume food, have missed a critical part of the path from grower to consumer: the people who prepare our food. F M ike Wold: Tell me what’s going on behind the kitchen door. Saru Jayaraman: What’s happening is the largest and fastest-growing industry in the United States - over 10 million workers. It’s also the lowest-paying employer in the U.S. Seven of the 10 lowest-paid jobs in America and the two lowest-paid jobs in America are restaurant jobs —dishwashers and fast-food cooks. That means the largest and fastest-growing sector of the economy is proliferating poverty-wage jobs in the U.S. I argue that there’s at least one person in every restaurant in America who is homeless or verging on homelessness or in a home-insecure situation because the wages are so low they’re not enough for somebody to survive on. The real cause of all this is an industry lobby called the National Restaurant Association, which we call the other NRA, that has made a deal with Congress that tipped-workers’ wages will never go up ever. So it’s been stuck at $2.15 an hour for the last 22 years. M.W.: We’ve already got some o f what you want here in Seattle, right? S.J.: Washington is one of seven states in the country that has no difference between tipped wages and non-tipped wages, but the fact that the industry sets the floor so low nationally drives down wages even in Washington state. The other issue workers face is 90 percent of these workers don’t have paid sick days. Two-thirds cook, prepare and serve food when they’re sick. And 90 percent of food-borne illnesses can be traced back to sick restaurant workers. can just leave with your check, or you can just tweet a message with your smartphone. Please don’t think that just tipping better is enough; tipping better is great, but we need people to actually speak up. minimum wage. That’s the first issue, but later it could be about paid sick days, it could be about GMOs. The tag line is “gathering for a responsible food system.” M.W.: What about unions? M.W.: Why isn’t tipping the solution? S.J.: (One thousandth of a) percent of restaurant workers are unionized. This S.J.: People think that the tip is industry’s exploding something you put on so fast, and it’s so top of a wage, when in different from fact in most of the traditional country the tip is Seven of the 10 lowest-paid manufacturing that actually the wage. new models are jobs in Bmerlca and the two This industry is the needed. If we really only industry that’s lowest-paid jobs 1» fenerlca want to think about won exemptions so M.W.: In Seattle we have paid sick days; there are restaurant jobs — transforming this they don’t have to pay was an attempt at the state level to repeal that. dishwashers and last-food industry in our their own workers’ lifetime, it can’t just wages. We’re just S.J.: The Restaurant Association’s behind cooks. That means the be about going after feeding the industry’s largest and fastest-growing that. individual restaurants. subsidy, which is the sector of the economy Is We need to think expectation that M.W.: You want people to speak to p ro life ra tin g poverty-wage about lifting standards consumers will pay restaurant management - you even provide a their workers’ wages across the board. restaurant guide and an instructional video jobs in the O.S. for them. It’s great to These workers have on your website (rocunited.org/dinersguide/) tip well, because the been waiting for two on how to do it. B u t you suggest consumers be workers rely on it, but decades for their really nonconfrontational. at the same time we tipped wage to go up. need to be fighting In June we got S.J.: We organize workers to stand up (for a fair wage). when there’s exploitation on the job. And George Miller (D-Calif.) in the House and The food movement in general, the that sometimes has to be confrontational. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in the Senate to solutions have been very individual — “grow But the role of consumers is not to scream introduce the Fair Minimum Wage Act of local, go to your farmers market, grow local 2012. It was the first time in two decades and yell. gardens, that’s what change is all about.” As consumers we have incredible power that congressional leadership introduced a When, in fact, we need to have some every time we speak up. We’ve seen the bill that included tipped workers. We need collective voice and power. change happen with local and organic. to move this bill. We need to move it fast. We’re asking people to do three things: People did change restaurant menus to It has a good chance — as good as ACA provide locally sourced organic menu items. One, help build a buzz around the books, so (Affordable Care Act) had. The challenge we can lift these issues up to the national So it is possible to speak up on paid sick will be that the Restaurant Association is days and minimum wage and see the same stage. Two, join The Welcome Table and going to push hard for the tipped workers to become part of a consumer movement for kind of impact. be left out. Even our allies on the Hill We don’t recommend that you talk to your change, and three, speak up every time you sometimes in the last minute will say, “Oh, waiter; you can get your waiter in trouble. eat out, the way that instructional video well, we can get rid of this opposition if wc shows. We recommend that you talk to the just raise everybody else’s wages but not the management at the end of your meal. We The Welcome Table can be found at tipped workers.” did create a smartphone app for people who TheWelcomeTable.net, an on-line consumer are afraid to speak up. In the back of our organization of people coming together and M.W.: What are some o f the challenges of diners’ guide there are tip cards that you demanding that Congress raise the organizing restaurant workers?
