Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour. Low-wage workers are actually worse off now than they were in 1968, when the minimum wage reached a peak of $8.56 an hour in inflation-adjusted dollars. Yet as sobering as these statistics are, they don’t capture the complete story. Workers who don’t receive tips are guaranteed $7.25 an hour, yet tipped workers only earn a measly hourly wage of $2.13. Even more staggering, a recent study found that 41 percent of New York City’s restaurant workers are food insecure, and tipped workers are 30 percent more likely to struggle to put food on the table than those who earn tips.
While the top earners in the restaurant industry can make a good living, the average tipped restaurant worker can only expect to take home about $18,200 a year. The majority of these workers are adults and nearly a third of them have children. If working families are going to have a shot at economic prosperity, let alone making ends meet, then something has to give.
Saru Jayaraman is working to change the system. The co-founder and co-director of Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) and director of the Food Labor Research Center at U.C. Berkeley, Jayaraman is an advocate for the radical transformation of our nation’s restaurants. She has led campaigns against some of the largest and most powerful lobbying groups in the country in order to win fair wages and better working conditions for restaurant workers. Civil Eats recently spoke with Jayaraman about the David vs. Goliath battle against exploitive employers, the power of collective action, and how the food movement can learn from the labor movement.
How did you get started working in the food system?
I was an attorney and an organizer working with low-wage workers in New York when 9/11 happened. About 13,000 restaurant workers lost their jobs in the weeks and months following [the attack]. A very tiny union [in the restaurant in World Trade Center Tower One] called me and one of the head waiters and asked us to start a relief center for the workers who lost their jobs and the families of the victims.
What inspires you to do the work that you do?
It’s definitely the 10 million restaurant workers in this industry. They are mothers, parents, immigrants—people from all over the world and from all kinds of backgrounds. They take great pride in their work. A lot of people think of these jobs as throwaway jobs and the restaurant industry itself likes to say that these are kids who are moving on to something “better,” when in fact the vast majority of people working in this industry are adults with children. And if they leave restaurants with high turnover, it’s not because they don’t want to stay in the industry, it’s because they’re moving from restaurant to restaurant trying to find something better.
What has been your biggest victory or success working in the food system? What has been your most difficult challenge?
We’ve won about 20 campaigns against exploitation in very high-profile restaurant companies, and every time that happens, it’s an indication that people coming together—workers, employers, consumers—to demand change actually does have success. Everyone does better when workers do better. [Together we can ultimately] overcome even the most powerful restaurant lobbies like the National Restaurant Association (NRA).
The biggest challenge is the size, scope, scale, and power of the opposition. The restaurant industry is the second-largest and fastest-growing private sector employer in the United States, and yet it [is also] the absolute lowest-paying employer. That is entirely due to the power of the NRA. They’re the most powerful employer lobby in the U.S., and the tenth most powerful lobbying group period.
The NRA paints the picture of a guy working at the fancy steakhouse or the fine dining restaurant rolling in tips. Unfortunately, a lot of consumers in the food movement eat at those kinds of restaurants and think that that’s true. In fact, 70 percent of restaurant workers are women and they largely work at Applebee’s, IHOP, Denny’s—these are the places where progressives in the food movement don’t eat.
What do you think is some of the most exciting work going on in our food system at large?
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