How One Fair Wage is Helping Minimum Wage Workers

By Madeleine Beirne

Intern, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

In a report recently released by One Fair Wage, a nonprofit that is led by advocates for restaurant workers to end the sub-minimum wage for tip workers, “How the ‘Other NRA’ Stymies Critical Progress in Massachusetts”, One Fair Wage highlights the ways in which the Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA) has opposed workers’ rights in the state. Specifically, the report found that, over the past two and a half years, the MRA has been a primary adversary of workers’ rights policy in Massachusetts, “spending more than a quarter of its lobbying budget opposing nearly every bill that could have advanced workers’ rights, including legislation to eliminate subminimum wages and to guarantee emergency paid sick time” (One Fair Wage, 2021). Generally, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, which is a chapter of the larger, nationally-situated National Restaurant Association (NRA), has put profit over people, particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and has denied workers in the restaurant industry a living wage and safe working conditions. Overall, this report is an effort to equip the public - specifically working people - with information and knowledge that could make legislatures more responsive to the interests of working people, which is an essential step in alleviating the poor working experiences within the restaurant industry. While this paper served as a way to review the public lobbying disclosures of MRA-affiliated lobbyists generally, it also offered key recommendations for people, policymakers, corporations, and more, which are significant in initiating tangible action against the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and other state restaurant associations across the country. 

As someone who has experience working within the restaurant industry and retail industry, specifically as a minimum wage earner as well as a subminimum wage earner, this report was significant for me, particularly in the ways in which One Fair Wage stands up to the MRA and the NRA. As a Hostess and Food Expo within the restaurant industry, I have had many experiences of overall neglect as a worker. At a restaurant I worked at a couple years ago, non-salaried workers made $12.15 an hour, which was minimum wage at the time, which is, unfortunately, a lot more than most minimum wage workers make in the United States. When I began working there, my supervisor neglected to tell me that I was included in the ‘tip pool’ each night, so I went weeks without receiving any tips, an oversight that I now believe was intentional. Additionally, asking for time off was an incredible barrier. I remember asking for a weekend off for a family affair and being denied, asking for a Wednesday off to visit my Grandma and being denied, and several other times when my coworkers were forced to come in on days when they were sick or didn’t feel well. Additionally, my coworkers and I were never guaranteed emergency sick time, and many people were forced to come into their shift despite extenuating circumstances. One salient memory I have relating to the restaurant’s denial of emergency time off is an experience that occurred right when I started working at a restaurant in Chicago. That day, one of the other Food Expo workers at the restaurant called our boss and told him his father had been arrested for using an illegitimate green card, as they were undocumented, and said that he would have to come a couple of hours late to his shift. My boss was infuriated, claimed that he was lying, and threatened my coworker by saying that he could be fired if he didn’t come in. This experience highlights the disproportionate burden the restaurant industry places on BIPOC and immigrant workers, oftentimes because the restaurant industry views these workers as more easily manipulated, using their power as a tool to subject workers to poor working conditions and unfair labor practices. While I faced a plethora of gender-based harassment and, evidently, other poor work experiences within my restaurant experiences, the workers who were most consistently harmed, manipulated, and mistreated were BIPOC and immigrant employees, particularly if you lacked documentation. Due to the pandemic, restaurant workers are now viewed as essential workers, which carries a new significance within the industry. In this way, while these workers are being recognized for the difficulty yet necessity of their work, particularly throughout a pandemic, there are many new barriers that come with working during a pandemic, including maskless customers, close contact with other employees, having to wear PPE for many hours at a time, unsafe and aggressive altercations with customers, and more. Based on new research conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, and many different reports completed by Jacobin Magazine as well as Democracy Now, we know that the majority of these essential workers, in the restaurant industry as well as elsewhere, are BIPOC and female-identifying. Because of this, these workers are put at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, while higher-income, white individuals are more likely to be able to work from home remotely, avoiding unsafe workplace situations in terms of the pandemic. In saying all of this, I believe it is important to be cognizant of who this pandemic is impacting the most within the population of essential workers, and address these workers’ needs equitably.

My own experiences within the restaurant jobs I’ve held - while they may seem especially harmful and damaging to people who haven’t worked within the restaurant industry - are experiences that most people within the restaurant industry and other front-facing customer service contexts have had. Experiences of denied sick time, subminimum wages, wage theft, workplace harassment, and inequitable tipping are commonplace within the industry, and point to a system-wide failure among restaurant associations in the U.S., something that the One Fair Wage report touches on significantly. Furthermore, as is evident above, BIPOC workers, immigrant workers, and women experience this type of work environment at an even higher rate than other workers, particularly throughout the pandemic. The negative experiences I have had as a Food Expo, Hostess, Retail Assistant, and other restaurant-based jobs would be significantly alleviated through the measures that One Fair Wage recommends. Specifically, supporting the 2021 Raise the Wage Act, pledging to reject money from Big Food, and immediately ending any membership with or funding to the NRA, are all One Fair Wage recommendations that would significantly impact restaurant workers in the industry, including myself. In reading this report, I am not surprised by the measures the Massachusetts Restaurant Association has taken against restaurant workers across the state, as these measures speak to the purpose of organizations like the MRA, and the NRA, which is not to support its workers or to ensure a healthy, safe, beneficial workplace, but rather to make money and to uplift corporations and privatized organizations/causes in the process. One Fair Wage’s report is an important step in combatting the MRA and NRA, and I hope that restaurant workers in Massachusetts feel supported and believed by organizations like One Fair Wage, as I have come to feel.