by By Sean Case
Restaurant workers have long been left languishing in the US. It’s time to fight for better lives.
Late one night last June, the restaurant I’ve worked at the past 7seven years caught fire. I went to bed that evening dreading the next workday and woke up dreading unemployment. The fire came after 2two years of working through the Covid pandemic, an intense and traumatic time for all restaurant workers. Now, suddenly, after working hard to keep the restaurant afloat through the turmoil of the pandemic, my coworkers and I were left adrift.
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Luckily, we found out a couple weeks later that the restaurant’s fire insurance would cover our wages until a new restaurant was up and running. We just had to work part-time at a pop-up to keep the insurance payments flowing. Not a bad deal!
But an expected opening date in October became December. December became January, February, March (we finally opened in our new location on May 15). Meanwhile, we were locked into our pre-inflation wages, which were already too low. Some of my coworkers were paying over 50 percent of their wages in rent every month. Communication from our bosses about the progress of the new space was spotty. We were nervous.
How it Started
Last Fall, our bosses asked us to get together and discuss how we’d like to divvy up tips in the new restaurant. That conversation quickly revealed dramatic and seemingly arbitrary pay disparities. Front of house workers were making minimum wage, but invariably took home more money at the end of the day than even the highest paid cooks (nearly $1000 more per paycheck). A cook who had been there nearly a decade went years without a raise while newer and less experienced employees were compensated more than him; a server who had worked there nearly 15 years had never gotten a raise.
We’re fighting for reliable scheduling, pay and tipping transparency and equity, clear and fair disciplinary practices, better paid time off policies, and more.
Economic complaints pushed other issues to the surface. Scheduling was chaotic. We’d often not know our schedule until a couple days before the next workweek started. There were no clear disciplinary procedures, and communication between ownership and staff was murky, passive-aggressive, and often inappropriate; asking for time off often meant making the boss cry.
Workers at small businesses are conditioned to do more and accept less. It’s often true that the business can’t afford to provide things like competitive wages or decent healthcare. But the dynamic stretches beyond the economic realm. You’re compelled to pick up extra shifts, come to work sick, and work in unsafe environments. You’re family; you have to do it.
I floated the idea of unionizing. Having weathered 2two of the worst years of our working lives and witnessing brave local organizing efforts at Starbucks and Homegrown, the response from my coworkers was a resounding “hell yes!”
While winning a better individual workplace is good, we don’t want to stop there. We want to jumpstart union campaigns in restaurants across the city and country, at small shops like ours and larger chains.
We started meeting weekly. First just a core group of 4four. We met with an organizer from Restaurant Workers United (RWU), a small, new, democratic union focused on unionizing the industry. We started having one-on-one conversations with our coworkers to talk about how we could build a better workplace. Our organizing meetings quickly grew to eight to 8-10ten people weekly (out a staff at the time of 12twelve).
While we certainly had plenty of complaints about our workplace, we organized because we love it and each other. Our primary motivation is a positive vision for what our restaurant can become and the example it can set for an infamously exploitative industry.
We delivered a majority petition asking for voluntary recognition of our union on April 17 and received an affirmative answer 36 hours later. Since then, we’re back to work in a slammed restaurant and our staff has more than doubled. We’re working to get new hires involved in the union and several have already signed cards.
A Better Restaurant Industry is Possible
We’re looking forward to negotiating our first contract and setting a strong example for the restaurant industry in Seattle and beyond. We’re fighting for reliable scheduling, pay and tipping transparency and equity, clear and fair disciplinary practices, better paid time off policies, and more.
While winning a better individual workplace is good, we don’t want to stop there. We want to jumpstart union campaigns in restaurants across the city and country, at small shops like ours and larger chains. If restaurant workers can organize across shops on common demands like ending the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers and fighting the rampant sexual harassment that plagues the industry, we can improve the lives of all restaurant workers and show one another that we can have power where we once felt powerless.
Sean Case
Sean Case is a restaurant worker in Seattle. He’s a member of Seattle DSA and the Reform & Revolution caucus and is on Reform & Revolution’s editorial board. He’s also vice president of Restaurant Workers United.
