Monthly Archives: February 2021

Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration are pushing for a $15 minimum wage. And that increase would eventually apply to waiters, bartenders and other tipped workers. It would get rid of the national tipped minimum wage, which is just $2.13 an hour.

Companies have to kick in more if workers dont make at least $7.25 an hour when you add in their tips. But how did we develop two different minimum wages?

First, lets discuss the practice of tipping, which originated in Europe among aristocrats and was picked up by Americans in the mid-1800s.

Rich Americans started going to Europe and coming back with this sense that, Were going to be aristocrats now, said Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.It was a mark that you had been to Europe. That you were tipping. Oh, Im going to tip, because thats what we do in Paris.

Strong labor unions in Europe eventually rejected tipping, Friedman said. But in the United States,the end of slavery was what cemented the practice of tipping in American culture.

Companies didnt want to reach into their own pockets to pay recently freed enslaved people, said Saru Jayaraman, who directs the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.

Train companies hired tens of thousands of Black men, had them work as porters on the trains for no wage, just to live off the tips of the white customers who were traveling, she said. The restaurant industry, she added, also wanted the right to hire Black people and also not pay them.

Jayaraman said it left these workers at the mercy of people who may have chosen not to tip at all. So some continued to work for next to nothing at times.

There was pushback to the tipping system. It was called un-American, and in 1915, some states banned tipping. But those laws were quickly repealed.

The federal minimum wage as we know it was passed in 1938. Heres President Franklin Delano Roosevelt talking about wages:

In the speech, he talks about industrial workers. Tipped workers, whose employers at the time were not required to pay wages, were not discussed in the negotiations.

Rev. William Barber, president of the nonprofit Repairers of the Breach, said they were left out in part because the powerful forces in the South wanted to make sure Black people and Latinos and others did not have the same equal economic status as white workers.

In 1966, after mounting pressure from civil rights activists, many of whom were Black workers making extremely low wages, Congress finally set a standard for tipped workers: Employers would have to pay around half the minimum wage and kick in more if the tips didnt make up the difference. The tipped minimum wage stayed pegged to the regular minimum wage until 1996.

Herman Cain, who would become the head of the National Restaurant Association, testified in 1995 against a proposal to raise wages.

A minimum wage increase jeopardizes existing jobs, he said.

Labor historians say Cain helped push for a compromise: the minimum wage would rise, but the portion restaurants were responsible for would no longer rise as the federal standard did. So the tipped minimum wage stayed at $2.13 and has been there for more than 25 years.

Now is not a time for a massive increase in labor costs for restaurants, but especially upending a system that works for everyone, said Mike Whatley, vice president for state and local affairs at the National Restaurant Association. It works for customers, it works for restaurant operators, but most importantly it works for tipped employees.

But many activists say how well it works depends on who you are. Several studies have shown that Latinx and Black tipped workers make significantly less tips than their white counterparts.

Following a year of racial upheaval, according to Barber, its time to do away with a practice rooted in slavery.

You cannot just think that racism is just about words and people getting along. If youre going to address racism, first of all, youre going to have to address racism with an economic lens, he said.

Seven states and three territories already require companies to pay all of their workers the standard minimum wage, regardless of whether or not they get tips. But a change on the federal level is still being debated as it has for over a hundred years.

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How the end of slavery led to two different minimum wages - Marketplace

RAISING THE WAGE-If its passed by Congress, President Joe Bidens COVID-19 relief proposal would do a lot more than fund relief payments and vaccine rollouts.

It would also raise the wage floor for all U.S. workers and give a particularly long overdue raise to restaurant servers, taxi drivers, manicurists, and other tipped workers.

For Tanya Wallace-Gobern, getting rid of the subminimum wage for tipped workers is a matter of racial justice. Passing a living wage bill for tipped and non-tipped low-wage workers is essential to reducing inequality, she said in a recent briefing.

As the executive director of the National Black Worker Center Project, Wallace-Gobern oversees a network of eight centers across the country that aim to build power and transform working conditions for Black workers. The subminimum federal wage for tipped workers, which has been stuck at just $2.13 since 1991, is a clear barrier to their goals.

While employers are technically supposed to make up the difference if workers dont earn enough in tips to reach the current $7.25 federal minimum, this rule is largely unenforced.

Meanwhile, studies have long found a racial bias in tipping. A survey by One Fair Wage found that prior to the pandemic, 60 percent of Black tipped workers earned less than $15 per hour, compared to 43 percent of white tipped workers. And since the pandemic, 88 percent of them have seen their tips plunge by half or more.

The legislative vehicle for the Biden plan, the Raise the Wage Act, would boost the overall federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025. For tipped workers, it would rise to $4.95 this year and then by $2 per year until it matches the overall $15 minimum in 2026.

The subminimum tipped wage is a shameful relic of slavery. Tipping became prevalent in the United States only after the Civil War, when restaurants and railway companies embraced the practice because it meant they didnt have to pay wages to recently freed slaves.

That past hangs heavily over many Black workers.

Lets face it, Wallace-Gobern told me, 50 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty, Black people in the South still contend with economic hardships, persistent poverty, and the enduring legacy of slavery.

Wallace-Gobern, who is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, argues that policies designed to empower Black workers will help every other worker, too.

Black workers are the canaries in the economic coalmine of our country, Wallace-Gobern said. When the canary died, that was a signal that the conditions were bad for the miners. Thats the role Black workers play. If you improve their working conditions, that will lift all workers.

New studies agree with her.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that nearly a third of all Black workers would get a raise under the Raise the Wage Act. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it could also raise wages for 17 million workers overall. Another 10 million workers earning just above $15 could also see an increase.

With the National Black Worker Center Project, Wallace-Gobern is aiming to strengthen the capacity of Black worker centers to win minimum wage increases, build up a cadre of civil rights organizers, and advance a Southern strategy on racial justice and democratic freedoms.

The challenges are many. Particularly in the South, worker advocates are up against anti-union right to work laws and pre-emption restrictions that block cities from improving labor protections at the local level. But Wallace-Gobern is optimistic about the future.

Young people are ready to lead if we step aside and give them space, she remarked. I welcome the opportunity for them to stand on our shoulders and take us to heights that I and my grandparents could never imagine.

(Rebekah Entralgo is the managing editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies. This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed by OtherWords.org). Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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Next Article End the Subminimum Tipped Wage - City Watch

CHARLESTON, WV The Poor People's Campaign is holding a socially distanced march outside Sen. Joe Manchin's office located at 900 Pennsylvania Ave., Charleston, West Virginia on Monday, Feb. 15.

This is a moral issue and for this, the fight for $15/hour goes to the streets, a news release said.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign, will be in Charleston in person for the march, that starts at 3 p.m.

POVERTY WAGES

In a "Raise the Wage Moral Monday" sponsored by the One Fair Wage, SEIU and the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, the workers said politicians like to describe them as essential but not pay them what they deserve.

When I think about what this $15 an hour can do, I'm thinking about our child care providers, who are mostly women in West Virginia, working for poverty wages, said Amy Jo Hutchinson of the West Virginia Poor Peoples Campaign.

I'm thinking about the home health aides, who are working for poverty wages. I'm thinking about being told what we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and then told we don't deserve the bootstraps to pull ourselves up.

One Fair Wage held socially distanced gatherings in New York City, Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C., while others gathered online on Monday as politicians debated whether congressional rules allowed the minimum wage increase to be included in a budget reconciliation.

In the House, the Education and Labor Committee has included a $15 minimum wage in its portion of the pandemic reconciliation package.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said on Monday that the Congressional Budget Offices determination that a $15 minimum wage would have a "direct and substantial impact" on the federal budget means it can be included in the reconciliation process under the Byrd Rule.

The last time there was a depression of this scale, we got the minimum wage as a result of it in the New Deal," Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, said.

"[One Fair Wage] is possible and we are closer than weve ever been to passing a full, fair wage with tips on top.

$15 MINIMUM WAGE

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II called on both Republicans and Democrats to stand fast on the $15-an-hour minimum wage.

He said minimum-wage workers and their allies cannot get this close and then fall back.

"We say to all of them: Don't turn your back on $15-an-hour minimum wage, Barber II said.

Listen: 55% of poor and low-wealth people voted for this current ticket. That's the mandate. The mandate is in the people who voted. Not in the back-slapping of senators and Congress people. Its the people who voted. If we turn back now, it will hurt 62 million poor and low-wealth people who have literally kept this economy alive -- who were the first to go back to jobs, first to get infected, first to get sick, first to die. We cannot be the last to get relief and the last to get treated and paid properly. Respect us, protect us and pay us.

'SOCIETY IN CRISIS'

Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign, addressed the lies that some tell to make people think the country cannot afford to increase the minimum wage.

We cannot believe these lies that if we raise the wages, that it means that people are gonna lose work, Theoharis said.

We cannot believe the lies that if we pay all workers, including tip workers, a living wage... that it's gonna hurt our society. A society that allows 62 million workers to make less than the living wage is a society in crisis. And it does not have to be this way.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said essential workers need more than a thank you.

"They need to be respected, protected, and paid, she said.

Working people expect action -- nurses who are the last people to hold the hands of COVID patients, janitors who are keeping public spaces we're so eager to return to clean, fast-food workers feeding other frontline workers and all of us, and underpaid home care workers caring for our aging loved ones. Elected leaders must act now to answer the call and pass a federal $15 minimum wage."

WORKERS WEIGH IN ON $15 MINIMUM WAGE

Pam Garrison, West Virginia Poor Peoples Campaign:

They call this a rescue package. But yet, they want to take the most important part of the rescue out of it. If you want to get our economy going, then you give our people a decent wage. Don't take the main part out of a rescue package! Yes, we need help with the COVID; we need the whole, we need the whole nine yards. We need the whole thing. If you give people a minimum wage, if you give them a living wage, we can fix the holes in our roofs, we can buy a decent -- get us a vehicle that we can keep on the road. It's gonna take us letting them hear our voices and know: We are tired of scraping, scrounging, being hungry. We are tired of being the last on the list. We all want our voices heard.

Brianna Griffith, a tipped service worker in West Virginia:

We have a bloody and dark history of our people being treated terribly. And right now, with our essential workers on the frontlines in these small, cold towns with no space in the hospitals, we need that $15 more than ever -- especially our restaurant workers, our tipped workers. They are out on the frontlines. West Virginia is hemorrhaging young people out of this state. We don't have enough money to live here; we have to leave and find our way elsewhere, even though we would rather live in our home. So this $15 would mean everything to us.

Adriana Sanchez of Chicago, McDonalds employee for about 18 years:

We are essential workers. But we are not treated as so. I personally got sick. They didn't pay me while I had COVID. And that is not fair. Many of my coworkers also got COVID where I was working -- where I work, rather. And we did not get paid. None of us. I am going to stay here. I will continue to fight so that we get paid what we deserve. We are essential workers, and we have to be treated as such.

Haley Holland, a waitress in Phoenix:

We're not just service workers now. We've taken on the responsibility of being a public health official, dealing with guests who refuse to follow guidelines, and suffering for it. A $15 minimum wage with tips on top is long overdue. The cost of living has skyrocketed, and the minimum wage has stayed the same. Service workers deserve more for all their hard work. We deserve respect. We deserve a livable wage WITH tips on top. That is why we NEED One Fair Wage.

Justice Akueze, a bartender in Detroit:

Its probably not even safe for us to be working and Its not ideal, but its what we have to do to make a living and for the promise of getting a little money in your pocket to pay your bills. I dont even know if it's even worth the risk right now, what we are going through with putting our loved ones at risk.

Ifeoma Ezimako of Washington, D.C., a hospitality professional:

It is WAY past time to end the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. This legacy of slavery MUST end. It exploits our workforce that is mainly built up of mostly women and people of color. Living off of barely $2 an hour plus tips forces us to endure and even tolerate inappropriate customer behavior since tips make up the bulk of our pay.

Veronica Correa, restaurant worker in California:

Restaurant workers are uniquely positioned in that they are essential workers, but they have some of the least protections. Most of my colleagues have been on and off of unemployment for the past year due to the pandemic. They've run through whatever limited savings that they have, which is already super limited because based on a tip system, in the hospitality industry, it's really unstable and it's hard to plan.

Brian Keyser, owner of New York City restaurant:

I want you to remember that you're gonna be faced with lies, constantly, about what raising wages is gonna do to the economy. People say, if we raise wages, we're gonna lose jobs; businesses are gonna have to close; they're gonna cut jobs. And there's no example of this being true. For the entire history of this country, when wages have been raised... the economy has boomed.

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'Raise the Wage' Moral Monday protest to occur - Plattsburgh Press Republican

The following is a guest post by Victor Love, co-owner of Josephine's Southern Cooking in Chicago, written on behalf of One Fair Wage.

This opinion piece is part of a package that explores arguments in support of and against the Raise the Wage Act. Read the National Restaurant Association's article arguing against the proposal here.

The other day I was trying to explain to a friend why the Raise The Wage Act would be a good thing for independent restaurant owners like me. I described a block of businesses you might see in any town across the country. There would be a hair salon. And a dry cleaner. And a grocery store. And a restaurant like mine: Josephine's Southern Cooking on the South Side of Chicago. Why, I asked my friend, should the hair salon and the dry cleaner and the grocery store have to pay their workers a full minimum wage, but restaurants get away with paying less? Why are there special rules just for us? I'm trying to be a decent business owner and make sure my staff makes a living wage with tips on top, which is more important now than ever with tips down during the pandemic. Restaurant prices are set by the market, and unfortunately, there are many restaurant chains that lobby to keep wages low, so that they can convince consumers that food and hospitality are cheap.

This isn't a debate. We know that in the seven states that have moved to One Fair Wage a full minimum wage with tips on top restaurant industry growth is stronger and tipping is higher. One Fair Wage isn't only the just thing to do, but the smart thing to do from a financial perspective. So why even have a subminimum wage in the first place?

The disturbing fact is that the subminimum wage is a vestige of slavery. When the 13th Amendment formally ended chattel slavery in the United States, businesses in the South wanted to be able to continue to profit off of free Black labor. Some resorted, for instance, to pressing for new laws to criminalize Black people and then access free labor through prison convict leasing arrangements. But restaurants and train operators had a unique idea. Tipping, which had become popular in Europe as a form of "noblesse oblige" among wealthy landowners, would be introduced in the United States as a replacement for wages. Black train workers fended off this plan by forming a union and organizing to demand real wages. But groups of restaurants banded together the earliest iterations of what would become the National Restaurant Association lobby and tips as wages became the industry norm.In fact, in some cases, restaurant owners actually made Black workers pay the restaurants for the "privilege"of being able to work and hopefully earn tips.

Now let's layer a few more disturbing realities on top. Women who have to rely on tips as wages in states that pay the subminimum wage have documented rates of sexual harassment that are twice as high as women restaurant workers in states with a full minimum wage plus tips on top. That makes sense. When you rely on customers to make rent, the customer is always right even when they do something incredibly wrong. And studies show that White servers are tipped at higher rates than people of color, which accounts for the fact that White restaurant workers in general earn more than workers of color. Both of these dynamics have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationwide in 2020, White male restaurant servers made on average $5 more per hour than Black women servers because of implicit bias in tipping and the subminimum wage. And at the same time, women servers of all races have reported an increase in sexual harassment during the pandemic, often taking the form of "maskual harassment." This entails male customers saying things like, "Take off your mask so I can see how much to tip you or "Pull down that mask so I can see if I want to take you home later. "

Obviously restaurants are suffering, too. Yet our salvation should not and cannot come at the further expense of workers. For too long, many restaurants in our industry have taken advantage of laws that were originally designed to take advantage of workers of color and especially women of color. But the fact is, those of us who run restaurants and actually interact with our staff on a day-to-day basis know that worker fates and owner fates are ultimately intertwined. When we have happy, supported, successful staff we have low turnover, engaged guests and successful restaurants. And it's important that our economy going forward, including any pandemic relief, raises all boats. That's what the Raise The Wage Act does, bringing the restaurant industry into the 21st century and ensuring that the recipe for our success isn't based on racist and sexist policies from the past.

Indeed, this is what more and more restaurants are clamoring for restaurants like mine leaving the National Restaurant Association and joining groups like RAISE High Road Kitchens, which supports and advocates for owners in our industry who want to do right by workers and our communities. And during the pandemic, more and more cities and states have embraced policies to support so-called "High Road Kitchens," including California and Michigan and Boston and Chicago and New York City, to provide financial relief for restaurants that pay One Fair Wage. Its time for the federal government to follow our lead.

The Raise The Wage Act is good policy for the restaurant industry. We should all play by the same set of rules rules that are fair to owners, customers and employees. If my restaurant succeeds, it should be because we offer a good experience and a great meal to customers, not because we're cutting corners on worker wages. Saving restaurants has to include saving our workforce, and envisioning a future where the true cost of food and service is fair and just.

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One Fair Wage: Why we support the Raise the Wage Act - Restaurant Dive

President Biden is pushing to raise the minimum wage to $15. Here's how that would affect the economy. USA TODAY

Many making subminimum wage don't earn enough to qualify for unemployment. During the pandemic, 6 million restaurant workers were left behind. Some tell their stories below.

Introduction by Saru Jayaraman

Last month, members of Congress introduced a bill proposing a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a proposition President Joe Biden included in his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.

Bidens initial decision (he has since said that the wage hike mightnot make it into the final package) demonstrates his understanding that the economy cannot recover after one of the most devastating pandemics in the nation's history unless millions of low-wage workers are able to recover.

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.

Saru Jayaraman is the director of One Fair Wage.(Photo: Sekou Luke)

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 lawyet continued to exempt restaurant workers, allowing them to be paid mostly in tips.

Today the federal subminimum wage is $2.13 an hour more than two-thirds less than the full minimum wage and hasnt 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 nearly84% of restaurants investigated have violated these rules.

Today, about 70% of tipped workers are women. In addition, tipped workers are nearly twice as likely to be poor.

According to a 2014 survey by theRestaurant Opportunities Centers United and Forward Together of 688 current and former restaurant workers, women in states that allow a subminimum wage report twice the rate of sexual harassment as women working in the seven states Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington that require the full minimum wage in addition to tips.

RELATED CONTENT: It's time to end subminimum wage for workers with disabilities, says Tom Ridge

Contrary to public disinformation campaigns, these seven states have higher restaurant industry sales, small business growth and job growth, and the same or higher rates of tipping as the 43 states with subminimum wages for tipped workers.

The survey also indicated that women who earn a subminimum wage are frequently forced to tolerate inappropriate customer behaviorto ensure they get good tips.

The pandemic exacerbated these issues. As of May, nearly 6 million restaurant workers had lost their jobs due to COVID-19. One Fair Wage, a national organization working to end the subminimum wage, and 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.

Those who returned to work were asked to do more for less working in restaurants that frequently had shorter hours and fewer customers for significantly less in tips.

Another survey on sexual harassment conducted by One Fair Wage, the UC Berkley Food Labor Research Center and the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment in December found that 41% of restaurant workers reported an increase in sexual harassment, and hundreds of women reported what were calling #MASKualHarassment the horrifying phenomenon of female servers being asked by male customers to take off their masks so the men can judge their looks and decide how much to tip.

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that adults have an increased risk of catching COVID-19 eating in restaurants, we rely on these workers to enforce social distancing and mask rules that are difficult to enforce on their current wage system.

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 Jayaramanis the president ofOne Fair Wage, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of several books on the restaurant industry, including "Forked, A New Standard for American Dining." She is also the former co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. Follow her on Twitter: @SaruJayaraman.

Chantel St. Laurent; Lewiston, Maine

I love working in restaurants, but had to take on a second job as a substance use counselor during this pandemic. It has been a lifesaver.

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 theres an outbreak at the restaurant? A lot of us live week to week. If we had to go into a 14-day quarantine, I personally dont know how many of us would survive financially.

Tips are down. Way down. The restaurant has limited capacity and limited hours due to CDCguidelines causing our in-person business to decrease dramatically. Maybe people dont know how it works, but those tips are what I live on. Did you know most servers do not get a paycheck? I get a check, every two weeks, but 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, its a little better, like the time I worked 15 hours and got a $64 paycheck. I count on tips, not my paychecks.

Chantel St. Laurent(Photo: Handout)

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. Restaurant work is really great in that way you can make money while still having a flexible schedule. I just graduated with my associates degree, and now Im working on my bachelors 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. That was really great. The owners also pooled tips and shared them among all of us, even employees who werent able to work because they suddenly had their kids at home or had health issues. Its a really caring environment.

But that doesnt mean its not hard.

In the middle of a pandemic, its really frustrating that were front-line workers but were getting paid less than everyone else risking their lives to help feed and take care of people in this crisis. I really love working in the restaurant industry. I love people, I love seeing them come in and have fun.

Im a lifelong Mainer, born and raised and now raising my own children as Mainers. And Im proud to be helping our state get through this crisis. I just wish our state would help me, by simply making sure Im paid the same, full minimum wage as everyone else on weeks where I make less than minimum wage. That doesnt seem like too much to ask. In fact, it seems like a simple step toward fairness thats way overdue.

Alyson Martinez-Diaz; Charles Town, West Virginia

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 were just as unsure as everyone else of what was going to happen from then on out, but, thankfully, they assured us they would help us out in any way they possibly could. Everything felt uncertain, and they had to lay off nearly the entire staff. The owners offered to help guide every worker in applying for unemployment insurance. West Virginias system is notoriously broken.

I was one of five people who kept working five of us suddenly trying to keep a restaurant, hotel (which had been partially shut down) and an adventure business (which stopped taking customers) managed. We were lucky because we had a resort liquor license so we could sell booze to hotel guests staying on property and taking to-go orders. That kept us in business.

But I was overworked, taking on jobs as assistant kitchen manager, bartender, housekeeper, front-desk agent, manager and full-time advertising agent. 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 during that period took its toll in stress and strain, and I couldnt take it anymore. Plus my kids and family needed more of my time during all the chaos, including my husband getting laid off.

Alyson Martinez-Diaz with her husband Francisco Martinez-Diaz.(Photo: Handout)

So I found another job, as a server at an Irish 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. The state couldnt keep up to really even do contact tracing. During that time, the staff got no pay. None. Nothing. The owners said we should apply for unemployment, but I hadalready been fighting that system from my last job, and my slow-to-come benefits were drying up. I thought we should get paid under the FamilyandMedical Leave Act, but the owners said they were exempt. Making ends meet was hard enough before. My family and I barely made it through those two weeks.

I tried to find another job. I applied to nine other restaurants, but so many mom-and-pop businesses are closing. Things are getting really rundown. The entire county that I live in is financially suffering. Some people might not feel its 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.

And 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. There are so many examples I could give. Just the other day, 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. Lets see that gorgeous smile.

Thats something I get a lot of. These guys know we need their tips, and theyll imply if you do what they ask, they'll throw us more money. Its wrong and its sickening. 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 dont think our lawmakers in West Virginia or anywhere in the country would want anyone they love being treated this way risking their lives only to be harassed and paid like garbage. I want to say to our lawmakers: Please have a soul and help fix this. One day your own children could be walking in my shoes.

John Michael Alvarez; Denver

I was unemployed until two weeks agoafter I quit my job as a restaurant server last year. I got into an altercation with a customer who wasnt wearing a mask. I hadbeen risking my health, for almost no pay and lower and lower tips, exposing myself to a deadly virus, just to help people get a little joy in this moment. But 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.

John Michael Alvarez(Photo: Handout)

I feel like Ive been failed by the system in every way, even though I'm one of the lucky ones. I was able to collect unemployment during the three months I was out of work. A lot of restaurant workers who get their tips only in cash cant count those tips as wages for unemployment insurance. Lots of us are told we earn too little to even qualify for unemployment. The restaurant I worked at, our tips went on our paycheck. That ended up being a good thing in a moment like this. But still, the unemployment insurance system is at its breaking point. I havent gotten a check in over a month. Im living off of food banks now. Im a month behind on all of my bills. Im even using donated pet food. And I know Im not anywhere near the only person in this situation.

Working in restaurants for low wages and relying on fickle tips was hard even in the best of times. Maybe it makes sense in a few restaurants with big spenders, but in my restaurant we did tip pooling, so I didnt even take my tips home. They were divided up equally among all of us by the hours worked. Then, add in the pandemic, and tips were way down. We had to space the tables, which halved our capacity. So I was still working as many hours but taking home way less.

I dont think a lot of customers and a lot of policymakers realize how fortunate they are, and that the rest of us dont have a safety net of family or savings to catch us. Were on our own. We work hard to earn what little we have, and it can all be wiped away in a minute.

Regular folks are the people whose hard work, dedication and ambition make this country stronger. And we need to make sure our work is validated and compensated in a way that reflects the fact that we're essential. That should feel clearer now more than ever.

Haley Holland; Scottsdale, Arizona

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 arent 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 dont have their own. But I get the dirtiest looks, the rudest comments. Its abusive.

The other day, a woman came inside to pick up a to-go order. I asked her, very politely, if she could wear a mask. But she refused, because she said she had a health condition. Which is obviously completely her right, but I explained that in that case shed have to wait outside. When she made a fuss about it, my supervisor said the same thing. She knew that our policy was that customers didnt have to wear masks while eating in the dining room, so she went over to one of the dining tables and flopped herself down and just sat there, maskless, exuding hostility. Then when it came time to pay for her to-go order, she didnt tip. She didnt follow the rules rules meant to keep us and customers like her safe and Im the one who pays the price, in every sense. When she signed the bill, she literally threw it at me.

Haley Holland(Photo: Handout)

Two days later, she came back to complain about me. She said that I was rude and had embarrassed her. She lied and said that she hadbeen wearing a mask all along, but that I had made her feel like she had the plague. I was lucky. My manager apologized to her but I didnt get in trouble. But at another job, with a less supportive manager, theres no doubt I would have been penalized. On top of not getting paid, which is the biggest penalty of all.

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. Ive 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. I know thats what theyre supposed to do, but they never do.

Ive been very fortunate to work at some great local restaurants with managers who really seem to care about their workers. But lets be honest, at the end of the day, its always about the bottom line, and too many restaurant owners will do whatever they can to increase their profits. Restaurant workers are now public health workers, enforcing these lifesaving guidelines with customers, at the same time were forced to rely on those very customers to feed our families and pay our rent. Its just not fair, and it just doesnt work. And its restaurant workers like me who are paying the price.

Dominique Brown; Washington, D.C.

I worked for tipped wages in restaurants forabout seven years. I work as a concierge now. Its more relaxed, and I feel more respected.

I was born and raised in our nations 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. Ive 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. I love taking care of people. I love helping people come together through food. My love language is acts of service and communing over meals, meeting different people, talking about where we come from and sharing our stories I love that part of restaurant work.

But I dont like the instability and abuse. Ive had managers who expected us to do work off the clock and if we didnt, theyd take us off the schedule for the next week or move us to shifts with bad tips. I worked at one restaurant where there actually was a class action lawsuit for forcing us to do nontipped work on a tipped worker wage. In one case, I had to carry trays that were so heavy, I developed a cyst on my wrist. The manager didnt care. He just wanted me back at work. And when I returned to work against my doctors recommendations, after being pressured to do so by management, he had another manager write me up after I set a tray down while helping a guest. 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 were subhuman.

Dominique Brown(Photo: Handout)

That goes for customers, too. Ive had customers who wanted to touch my hair. Ive had others, especially in Washingtonwhere a lot of businessmen come for conferences, who have been dismissive and disrespectful to Black and brown staff. This especially happened with a lot of white businessmen from the South. But were just supposed to laugh it off and take it so we can get our tips. Its a really problematic system.

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 didnt care about any of us. They did some kind of GoFundMe for staff but didnt share the money with everyone. I didnt 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 didnt even have the decency to tip.

The restaurant I worked at in New York shut down in March, at the beginning of the pandemic. To add insult to injury, like so many other restaurant workers left jobless, I had trouble getting unemployment insurance and still havent received all the money Im due.

Now I work for a company that pays me a livable wage. I get benefits.

Id 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 shouldnt be that way. These are hardworking professionals. Theyre worth more than that. Im worth more than that. And we need wage laws that respect our work and our worth.

Are you a tipped worker? What's your story? Tell us using letters@usatoday.com or #tellusatoday on Twitter.

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For these tipped workers, $15 minimum wage is a matter of COVID-19 survival - USA TODAY

Many Hoosier voters dont know that Indianas minimum wage is really $2.13 per hour. That is what waiters and waitresses make at many restaurants in Indiana. That is how little I made as a waiter in 1996.

Tipped restaurant workers depend on tips. But when restaurants use the tipped workers to take and package orders for carry out or delivery, the servers make no tips. A waitress I know complained to me that her employer made her take and package 87 to-go orders in one shift. She made no tips. She was paid only $2.13 per hour. She could not live on that. So, she quit and went to a different restaurant to wait tables and get tips.

Indiana law outlaws slavery. But $2.13 per hour amounts to slave wages. It is time to help those who are being abused and mistreated by Indianas $2.13 per hour minimum wage. Tell the Legislature and the governor to GIVE THEM A RAISE.

Woodrow Wilcox, Dyer

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Letter: Give these workers raise | Letters To The Editor | kokomotribune.com - Kokomo Tribune

Eliminating the subminimum tipped wage would also eliminate a shameful relic of slavery. Tipping became prevalent in the United States after the Civil War, when restaurants and railway companies embraced the practice because it meant they didnt have to pay wages to recently freed slaves.

That past hangs heavily over many Black workers.

Lets face it, Wallace-Gobern told Inequality.org, 50 years after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty, Black people in the South still contend with economic hardships, persistent poverty, and the enduring legacy of slavery. We believe that in order for there to be justice for all workers, we must expand the capacity of Black workers, and for us that means that our work has to be concentrated in the South.

Currently based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Wallace-Gobern began her organizing work in Chicago as a student at Loyola University. Her work on a range of racial justice issues, from combatting racist stereotypes and attacks on Black students to fighting for Black professors to receive tenure, caught the eye of labor movement recruiters. When they offered her a job, she said she would only do it if she could organize Black people and Black women in particular.

Black workers are the canaries in the economic coalmine of our country, Wallace-Gobern told Inequality.org. When the canary died, that was a signal that the conditions were bad for the miners. Thats the role Black workers play. If you improve their working conditions, that will lift all workers.

She became the first executive director of National Black Worker Center Project three years ago, after stints with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (a predecessor of UNITE HERE), the AFL-CIOs Historical Black College Recruitment program, and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

One Fair Wage rally for a $15 minimum wage for all U.S. workers, Feb. 8, 2021. Credit: Rebekah Entralgo.

Wallace-Goberns aim now is to strengthen the capacity of Black worker centers to win progressive policies like minimum wage increases, build up a cadre of Civil Rights 2.0 organizers, and advance a Southern strategy on racial justice and democratic freedoms.

The challenges are many. Particularly in the south, worker advocates are up against anti-union right to work laws and pre-emption restrictions that block cities from improving labor protections at the local level.

But Wallace-Gobern is optimistic about the future.

Young people are not turning their back on the legacy of the civil rights movement, but they are ready to lead if we step aside and give them space, she remarked. I welcome the opportunity for them to stand on our shoulders and take us to heights that I and my grandparents could never imagine.

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Ending the Subminimum Tipped Wage Is a Step Towards Building Black Worker Power - Inequality.org