We all enjoy eating out," Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) writes on the website for its National Diners' Guide 2012. "Unfortunately, the workers who cook, prepare, and serve our food suffer from poverty wages, no benefits like paid sick days, and little or no chance to move up to better positions. When the people who serve us food can't afford to pay the rent or take a day off when they're sick, our dining experience suffers."
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Ninety percent of the more than 4,300 restaurant workers surveyed by ROC reported their employers did not offer employees paid sick leave. Two-thirds of those surveyed reported that their employees routinely cook, prepare, and serve food while sick.
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Workers are entitled to a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour if they do not receive tips and $2.13 per hour if they do, as well as overtime pay, if they work more than 40 hours per week; if tips and wages don't add up to $7.25 per hour, the employer is obligated to make up the difference. But many workers aren't aware that they're entitled to payment for all of the hours they work, let alone at what rate, the guide noted. And a wage gap exists even among workers making the bare minimum that the government requires employers to pay. "Women, immigrants, and people of color hold lower-paying positions in the industry, and do not have many opportunities to move up the ladder," the report found. "Among the 4,300 workers surveyed, we found a $4 wage gap between white workers and workers of color, and 73 percent reported not receiving regular promotions on the job."
The Worst Restaurants to Work For | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine
Race based wage discrepancies, sick workers contaminating food for the rest of us and no social mobility. Welcome to the union free future everyone.
Lone restaurants shouldn't be legal. Eating is supposed to lead to intimacy, so you should have to have a hotel or inn on the side.
If every restaurant was organized like that, I doubt workers would ever be treated poorly.
I managed a unionized food and beverage operation once, at a sports arena where the local hockey and basketball teams play.Race based wage discrepancies, sick workers contaminating food for the rest of us and no social mobility. Welcome to the union free future everyone.
...you have GOT to be kidding.
I managed a unionized food and beverage operation once, at a sports arena where the local hockey and basketball teams play.
We could only promote employees based on seniority, and never based on skill, work ethic, or production. If I had a great employee who wanted to learn how to be a bartender, she couldn't. Seniority, you see. I had a couple employees who liked to assault their co-workers. Sometimes I'd send them home (with full pay of course), sometimes I had them arrested. They couldn't be fired, of course. I had one employee who had a phobia for toilet paper and would return from his bathroom breaks with visible feces on his hands. He refused to wash his hands, and he couldn't be fired because he had been with the union for more than 10 years. Would you like extra poo on your hot dog today? No problem.
Oh yeah, those poo-flavored hot dogs were $8.50. Welcome to a unionized restaurant.
Unions have no place in businesses where safety, performance, and quality are factors.
Paid or no, sick food handlers should not be handling food. Whether the workers get paid or not for staying home when they're sick, they should be sent home.If you offer 5 paid sick days...
Don't be sorry, I know it sounds like an exaggeration. He was also afraid of paper towels, the paper hats everyone else had to wear, even the cash register recepts. Not an uncommon disorder, I understand.I'm sorry, but I have to call that into question. Seriously, who the f___ is afraid of toilet paper?
The Worst Restaurants to Work For | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine
Race based wage discrepancies, sick workers contaminating food for the rest of us and no social mobility. Welcome to the union free future everyone.
I managed a unionized food and beverage operation once, at a sports arena where the local hockey and basketball teams play.
We could only promote employees based on seniority, and never based on skill, work ethic, or production. If I had a great employee who wanted to learn how to be a bartender, she couldn't. Seniority, you see. I had a couple employees who liked to assault their co-workers. Sometimes I'd send them home (with full pay of course), sometimes I had them arrested. They couldn't be fired, of course. I had one employee who had a phobia for toilet paper and would return from his bathroom breaks with visible feces on his hands. He refused to wash his hands, and he couldn't be fired because he had been with the union for more than 10 years. Would you like extra poo on your hot dog today? No problem.
Oh yeah, those poo-flavored hot dogs were $8.50. Welcome to a unionized restaurant.
Unions have no place in businesses where safety, performance, and quality are factors.
And? I worked in the restaurant industry for 5 years at 3 different restaurants. Most don't offer paid sick leave and race has little to do with it.
And as far as opportunities and positions. Well, thats where you start and communications abilities could further impede advancement. Are you going to make someone a manager who speaks little or broken English?
Granted, I am older than you, and thus my experience is a bit more dated, but I also have several years of restaurant experience from my younger days, and in my experience and observations it is your experience and observations that are the isolated cases. The ONLY times an employee would be to *told* to go home was in only the most extreme scenarios. And even then most employees would fight going home because they were low-wage employees who needed the money and every dollar counted. It wasn't ideal, and everybody knew it, but it was hard reality.I worked 5 years as a busboy, server, front manager, etc. When I was sick, I said so - I can't think of a single instance where I was told to stay and work when I had a potentially infectious disease. The last thing anyone needs is for a negative story on the restaurant like that getting out. Every manager knows like it was tattoo'd on his face that people will typically tell at least three times as many people about a bad dining experience as a good one. I am... suspicious that this would be more than anything but a case of isolated, stupid managers.
A great many people in these jobs are also people who are younger and/or haven't fully developed responsibility traits yet, and will often abuse the idea of sick leave and take sick days for hangover, or even just because they were too tired after playing games online all night. Then, when they really get sick, they'd have nothing left to lean back on anyway.If you offer 5 paid sick days, how many employees will use less than 5? OK, now what happens on sick day #6? The idea that sick leave makes people not come to work when they are sick, is great in theory but not in practice. Even if the leave was pooled, so that those that needed it could use it even for a two week illness, and those that did not need it would be less likely to simply "fake" it, it still would likely not work as planned. Many use ANY leave as simply a given, likely to go to work when sick and use the sick days when they feel fine, but don't like the assigned shift or have an opportunity to go fishing, go to a party or see a sporting event. Any boss that would fire a worker for missing a day or two while sick, is a moron that you won't miss working for anyway.
I almost never understand anything you say. This is one of those times.Lone restaurants shouldn't be legal. Eating is supposed to lead to intimacy, so you should have to have a hotel or inn on the side.
If every restaurant was organized like that, I doubt workers would ever be treated poorly.
In a scenario like that, if I were the manager, I would have called the health department and reported it as an anonymous tip, and let them fight it out with the union.I managed a unionized food and beverage operation once, at a sports arena where the local hockey and basketball teams play.
We could only promote employees based on seniority, and never based on skill, work ethic, or production. If I had a great employee who wanted to learn how to be a bartender, she couldn't. Seniority, you see. I had a couple employees who liked to assault their co-workers. Sometimes I'd send them home (with full pay of course), sometimes I had them arrested. They couldn't be fired, of course. I had one employee who had a phobia for toilet paper and would return from his bathroom breaks with visible feces on his hands. He refused to wash his hands, and he couldn't be fired because he had been with the union for more than 10 years. Would you like extra poo on your hot dog today? No problem.
Oh yeah, those poo-flavored hot dogs were $8.50. Welcome to a unionized restaurant.
Unions have no place in businesses where safety, performance, and quality are factors.
Granted, I am older than you, and thus my experience is a bit more dated, but I also have several years of restaurant experience from my younger days, and in my experience and observations it is your experience and observations that are the isolated cases. The ONLY times an employee would be to *told* to go home was in only the most extreme scenarios. And even then most employees would fight going home because they were low-wage employees who needed the money and every dollar counted. It wasn't ideal, and everybody knew it, but it was hard reality.
In one job I instantly went from the store manager's favorite cook to the bottom of her list because I had the audacity to take 5 days off (with a doctor's note) when I contacted mono. Seriously. I was expected to ignore the doctor's advice and work anyway. And while that one instance is extreme in the other direction, I worked in enough different places to know that that mindset was the norm, not the exception.
I worked 5 years as a busboy, server, front manager, etc. When I was sick, I said so - I can't think of a single instance where I was told to stay and work when I had a potentially infectious disease. The last thing anyone needs is for a negative story on the restaurant like that getting out. Every manager knows like it was tattoo'd on his face that people will typically tell at least three times as many people about a bad dining experience as a good one. I am... suspicious that this would be more than anything but a case of isolated, stupid managers.
I don't think the concern is managers not letting sick employees go home. The concern is sick employees not telling their managers they're sick because they cannot AFFORD to take a day off.
You're right, I'm painting with too broad a brush. My personal union experience is limited to a handful of jobs, and each experience was worse than the last. I've worked in two unionized workplaces that serve food, and both were the dirtiest, nastiest operations I had ever been a part of.To be honest, I think you're only 66.6% right on that one. The one thing I can compliment unions on, is that they do create and enforce safety rules and procedures on the job.
I worked in reastaurants (and bars, and night clubs, and sports arenas, and casinos, etc. etc.) for more than two decades, and I couldn't possibly disagree more. As a waiter and bartender, I loved my job. Come to work at 5pm, be off by 10pm, average $50/hour (and then put some of that money in savings, just in case you get sick and can't work). Yes, you have to deal with the occasional arsehole customer, but that's true in nearly every job.Restaurants are ****ty places to work - period - because some people are just slobby lazy ****s who don't want to cook for theirselves, are rude as all hell, impatient and disgusting people. . . and 'customer service' is #1.
No, it's really not. I'm not saying that there aren't bad/stupid managers out there, because there are. I'm saying that it takes an incredibly stupid manager to make the decision to place the health and safety of their customers in jeopardy for any reason (and managers eat out of that same kitchen too, remember). Poor sanitation practices lead to lawsuits, which can (and will and do) put a restaurant out of business. Bad managers and dirty kitchens are the exception, not the rule.In one job I instantly went from the store manager's favorite cook to the bottom of her list because I had the audacity to take 5 days off (with a doctor's note) when I contacted mono. Seriously. I was expected to ignore the doctor's advice and work anyway. And while that one instance is extreme in the other direction, I worked in enough different places to know that that mindset was the norm, not the exception.
I read the story and thought about how sheltered and naive people are when they act shocked that this happens. It is far more common than people want to think.
In one job I instantly went from the store manager's favorite cook to the bottom of her list because I had the audacity to take 5 days off (with a doctor's note) when I contacted mono. Seriously. I was expected to ignore the doctor's advice and work anyway. And while that one instance is extreme in the other direction, I worked in enough different places to know that that mindset was the norm, not the exception.
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