Many waiters and waitresses across Oklahoma are struggling to make ends meet with their wage frozen at $2.13.
At first glance, the restaurant industry provides a vital service for young adults in the United States, steady employment with a chance at earning a manageable wage.
One respondent to an online call-out for this story, UCO elementary education junior Angela Roybal, said, “I make $3.63 an hour (as a hostess) and my managers are always very helpful when it comes to my schedule. (…) The hours kind of suck but the money is usually pretty good, enough for me to be completely independent.”
In many cases, this does not represent the norm.
According to the 2012 Restaurant Opportunities Centers United National Diners Guide, the current median wage for restaurant workers is $8.90, putting them below the federal poverty line. Over 90 percent of workers surveyed by the guide reported that their restaurant didn’t offer paid sick leave, and worker discrimination across color- and gender-lines is a widespread problem.
One respondent, Amanda Whitlow, from Oklahoma City, said in an email that she had watched a co-worker begin her menstrual cycle while on the job, but the shift manager had refused to let her go.
“She asked to go home because she was so sick from her period and they told her that if she left she would be fired because starting your period is not a legitimate excuse to leave work,” she said. “She left crying and puking and was fired.”
In another situation, Whitlow found herself face-to-face with an abusive manager as well.
“One night I was hosting and one of the managers, (name redacted), came up to me and said, ‘What’s up, cunt?’ and my mouth dropped and I didn’t even know what to say and he said, ‘Do something, bitch.’ and walked off,” she said. I should have probably reported him for saying those things, but I felt at the time that nothing would have gotten done about it because he was best friends with the general manager.”
The federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13 an hour, compared to the recently raised $7.25 an hour for all other workers, since 1991. While a few states, like California, have legislated higher minimum wages for tipped workers, others, like Oklahoma, have strictly adhered to the federal standards.
One veteran of the industry said her earnings had decreased by as much as 50 percent in the last five years alone as a result of her wages not keeping up with inflation.
“This used to be a very well paid industry back in the day, and now you are lucky to break even making minimum wage,” she said.
Several groups, like ROC-United and the Food and Retail Workers branch of the radical labor union the Industrial Workers of the World, have sprung up in recent years with the goal of improving the poor working conditions seen across the industry.
Founded in 2001, ROC-United says it is “the only national restaurant workers’ organization in the United States…dedicated exclusively to the needs of restaurant workers.” It uses tools such as the Diners Guide to educate consumers on wage and working conditions in their favorite restaurants; a series of tip cards are also available for restaurant-goers to leave servers along with their tip.
The Food and Retail Workers Union was founded in October 2011 and brings together several IWW-led campaigns, such as the Jimmy Johns and Starbucks Workers Union. The former is notable for blowing the whistle on a Minneapolis-St. Paul Jimmy Johns store’s policy of not allowing paid sick leave. In April, a federal judge found the store guilty of illegally firing six union organizers for leaking that information.
Consumers can download the Diners Guide at ROC-United’s website, as well as tip cards and other informational material. Information about the Food and Retail Workers Union can be found here.