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Where Are You Taking Your Mom To Eat This Mother’s Day?

*From Huffington Post, 05.11.12, written by Saru Jayaraman

Of course you’re taking your mother out for brunch this Sunday.

In fact, Mother’s Day is one of the highest grossing days in the restaurant industry. But what about the mothers who are serving your mother?

I know I never used to think about these women. As a New Yorker I ate out almost every meal, and celebrated not just Mother’s Day but almost every occasion in a restaurant, never thinking once about the people touching my food. But after spending the last decade trying to improve wages and working conditions for restaurant workers through the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), and getting to know their stories, my dining experience has dramatically changed.

The minimum wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13 per hour for the last 21 years. Our research at ROC shows that bussers across the country are generally paid the minimum, and the vast majority of them don’t receive paid sick days or health insurance.

Last month, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa introduced the Rebuild America Act, which proposes increasing the overall minimum wage of $7.25 and increasing the subminimum wage for tipped workers to $5.

Even with tips, a restaurant server’s median wage is around $8.67, below the poverty line for a family of three.

More than a quarter of the almost 6 million women who work in U.S. restaurants are moms, and one in 10 are single mothers.

Now that I am a mother I think about this even more.

A few months after my daughter was born in 2010, we took her on her first restaurant outing, right around Mother’s Day. My husband Zach and I had decided to take a springtime trip to Santa Cruz, Calif., and we decided to stop at a “healthy foods” restaurant for Mother’s Day brunch. We took a lot of pictures and laughed at the funny faces my infant daughter made.

As I sat there, I couldn’t help noticing that all of the servers who greeted and served us were white and all of the bussers were Latina women. I watched these Latina women work their tails off throughout our meal. They moved chairs, collected an impossible number of dirty glasses in one hand and dirty plates in the other, ran about the restaurant putting bread on the tables and refilling water glasses, generally engaging in the most physical labor of anyone in the front of the restaurant.

I also knew these women probably struggled to put food on their own tables, because restaurant serving staff have three times the poverty rate and use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the American workforce. And with such low wages and no paid sick days, these women often can’t afford to take a day off when they’re sick.

In fact, two-thirds of the thousands of workers we’ve surveyed at ROC reported having cooked, prepared and served food while sick. As a mother, I don’t ever want my daughter eating in any place where the people touching her food are sick and too poor to be able to take care of themselves.

After we ate and paid our bill, I decided to say something to the manager. I praised the hard work of the bussers and asked if they were ever given the opportunity to advance to a server position.

The manager was caught off guard, but he answered amicably. He said that none of the bussers had ever said they wanted to move up. I told him that as a customer it was important to me to eat in restaurants where the staff was provided with decent wages and benefits like paid sick days, and as a mother it was important to be for my daughter to grow up in a world in which everyone had the opportunity to advance. He said he appreciated my point of view and comments, and I left.

That experience gave me a lot of hope. It wasn’t that I imagined that my comments alone would change the industry or even that restaurant. But over the last decade I’ve seen the power that consumers have to change practices.

So this Mother’s Day, wherever you take your mom, ask the manager at the end of the meal about the hourly wage of servers and bussers in the restaurant before tips, and whether they provide paid sick days.

As a mother, please do this for the sake of the millions of moms who serve us daily, and for the health of all our children.

Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) and an Assistant Professor of Public Law at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. A graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, she is the author of Behind the Kitchen Door: What Every Diner Should Know about the People Who Feed Us, forthcoming from Cornell University Press. The piece was written in association with The Op-ed Project, which seeks to expand the range of opinion voices.

Behind the Kitchen Door: What Every Diner Should Know About the People Who Feed Us, written by Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director of ROC United, is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of eating out. What’s at stake when we choose a restaurant is not only our own health or “foodie” experience, but the health and well-being of the second-largest private sector workforce—the lives of 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring passion, tenacity, and important insight into the American dining experience.

To be released February 13, 2013 by Cornell University Press.

For more information, visit www.behindthekitchendoor.org

To be released

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles spokeswoman Mariana Huerta says about 75,000 restaurant workers in Los Angeles don’t have access to insurance because they are undocumented immigrants.

The center has partnered with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center to offer physicals, dental care and treatment for common illnesses at $25 a month. The ROC-MD program, which started last fall, was formally announced on Wednesday.

The insurance coverage doesn’t replace traditional coverage, but instead focuses on preventive care so undocumented immigrants don’t end up in emergency rooms.

“Emergency rooms are the providers of last resort, and they are very expensive,” said David Hayes-Bautista, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, according to the Los Angeles Times. “If people can be provided alternatives, that saves everyone money.”

The Los Angeles Times said the program could be the first of its kind in the nation.

Legal immigrants and restaurant workers who cannot afford coverage under the health care law are also eligible.

Many of the workers’ children are covered by Medi-Cal, which helps offset the cost of care for the adults, said Jim Mangia, the clinic’s president and chief executive.

Based on reporting by The Associated Press. 

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2012/05/03/undocumented-workers-offered-health-care-in-los-angeles/#ixzz1uCOASQit

In a program believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, a restaurant workers’ group and Los Angeles community clinic have teamed up to provide inexpensive health care coverage to undocumented immigrants.

The program, called ROC-MD (Restaurant Opportunities Center-MD), offers uninsured restaurant workers $25-a-month preventive and primary care at one of several clinics run by St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, the Associated Press reports. Documented immigrants and restaurant workers who cannot afford health insurance are also eligible.

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles spokeswoman Mariana Huerta says about 75,000 restaurant workers in the city are uninsured because of their undocumented status, FOX News reports. Because workers are uninsured, it can be difficult to get medical attention when they fall ill.

“Restaurant workers are preparing, serving and cooking our food,” Huerta told TheLos Angeles Times. “So many of these workers reported that they go to work sick. That is a public health hazard for consumers.”

David Hayes-Bautista, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, told the Times that the program saves taxpayer money. “Emergency rooms are the providers of last resort, and they are very expensive. If people can be provided alternatives, that saves everyone money,” he said.

The need for health coverage by undocumented immigrants is as clear nationally as it is locally in Los Angeles. In January, Oakland resident Jesus Navarro made national headlines when he was dropped from the kidney transplant waiting list because of his undocumented status, despite having private health insurance.

A free four-day health clinic in the Los Angeles Sports Arena in October called attention to the estimated 2.2 million uninsured residents in the city, as thousands of Angelenos waited in long lines for hours to get into the limited-capacity event (photos below).

While the ROC-MD program may not be able to address national transplant policy, it serves to meet the needs of the undocumented immigrant population, which is not covered under President Barack Obama’s national health care reform.

ROC-MD started in Los Angeles last fall and was formally announced Wednesday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/undocumented-immigrant-health-care

LOS ANGELES – The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles (ROC-LA), a non-profit workers’ center and affiliate of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United), announced the launch of ROC M.D., a health care cooperative for uninsured restaurant workers. This historic program will  provide access to health care for over 75,000 Los Angeles restaurant workers who lack coverage and are excluded from current health care reform. ROC-LA made this announcement along with the St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, the main health care provider for the ROC M.D. program.

“We want to ensure that all low-wage workers, who are the most vulnerable and often exploited by employers, have their health needs addressed,” said Stephanie Cho, Lead Coordinator of ROC-LA, “Our historic collaboration with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center will provide affordable health care access, from basic dental care to getting needed prescriptions to being able to see a doctor when they are sick, to thousands of restaurant workers in Los Angeles.”

Although the Affordable Health Care for America Act expanded comprehensive health coverage to millions of uninsured people, the Act does not provide coverage options to millions of immigrants who have been in the United States for less than five years. This gap in coverage leaves an estimated 75,000 immigrant restaurant workers without health care options in Los Angeles County. Regardless of immigration status, a recent study conducted by ROC- LA found that 89.9% of restaurant workers do not receive health insurance from their employers.

Without access to affordable health care, many restaurant workers delay seeing the doctor and use expensive emergency rooms as clinics. Many restaurant workers are low income but are barred from eligibility for MediCal also because of their citizenship status. However, many of these same workers do not make enough to afford private health insurance. This creates a void in affordable access to care that ROC M.D., a health care cooperative for restaurant workers, is designed to cover.

Through ROC M.D., individual members of the cooperative contribute $20 per month and their $5 monthly dues to ROC-LA, and have access to primary care, preventative care, caseworkers, basic dental care, and health education. There are also affordable options for restaurant employers to cover their uninsured restaurant workers.

Information sessions for the health care cooperative will be conducted in English and Spanish on Thursday, May 3rd at 10:00am-2:00pm, Friday, May 4 at 2:00pm-5:00pm, Monday, May 7 12:00-4:00pm, Thursday 10, 12:00-2:00pm at St. John’s Well Child and Family Center. For more information about ROC M.D., call ROC-LA at (213) 489-9052, or email natalia@rocunited.org. Information is also available on the internet at www.rocunited.org.

While Speaker of the House John Boehner gave a speech at the NRA conference, servers and other restaurant workers earning the federal tipped minimum wage, activists with ROC, and other supporters danced and sang in flash mob style to a 1991 re-written hit from 90s-era R&B band Boyz II Men; the lyrics focused on the tipped minimum wage and gender discrimination in the restaurant industry. Meanwhile, oversized floating banners circled NRA headquarters with the message, “The National Restaurant Association Thinks Women Are Worth $2.13.”

“Women are disproportionately affected by the low tipped minimum wage,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, MomsRising CEO and Executive Director. “The vast majority of restaurant servers are women and in many cases those women are moms and the primary breadwinners in their families. It’s difficult enough to support a family on a single income today, but when you’re earning only $2.13 an hour and rely heavily on tips to make ends meet, it can be nearly impossible to keep your head above water financially. The irony is that these same moms who earn their living serving food often don’t earn enough to put food on the table, make the rent and cover the utilities.”

This event comes just a few weeks after Sen. Tom Harkin introduced legislation in Congress which would raise the tipped minimum wage for the first time in over twenty years. Both Speaker Boehner and the NRA oppose this legislation. In light of the proposed legislation and the W.A.G.E.S. Act (HR 631), ROC and its members organized a second protest on Capitol Hill, shadowing NRA members as they lobbied against better wages for women and working families.

As revealed in our recent report Tipped Over the Edge, servers, over 70% of whom are women, have three times the poverty rate of the rest of the United States workforce, and more than half of all restaurant workers live below the federal poverty line for a family of three.

“In what is one of our fastest-growing industries coming out of the recession, we should really ensure that the men and women who serve us and prepare our food are earning wages that keep them out of poverty,” said Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director of ROC. “It’s absurd that the minimum wage has remained unchanged for over twenty years despite the massive profits the industry earns. We’re here to tell our legislators: it’s time to change the wage.”

Victoria Burton, a member of ROC-Philadelphia and restaurant server for over 18 years in Pennsylvania, said, “I serve families food for a living, but there were times I had to use food stamps to feed my own family. Even though I worked hard year after year, as a single parent of two children relying solely on my tips to survive, the only way I was able to have a roof over my head and feed my children was with additional support from my parents and the government.”

Want to see more pictures? Check out our FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUM!

CONTACT:
Nick Sifuentes, nick@berlinrosen.com, 310-866-1692
Meghana Reddy, meghana@rocunited.org, 314-749-1785

Washington DC – On Equal Pay Day and the first day of the National Restaurant Association (NRA)’s Public Affairs Conference, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), restaurant workers and supporters traveled to the NRA headquarters to “Protest Like It’s 1991,” calling attention to the fact that the federal subminimum wage rate for tipped workers of $2.13 has not been raised since 1991. This stagnant subminimum wage has resulted in alarming rates of poverty among tipped workers, the majority of whom are women.

While Speaker of the House John Boehner gave a speech at the NRA conference, servers and other restaurant workers earning the federal tipped minimum wage, activists with ROC, and other supporters danced and sang in flash mob style to a 1991 re-written hit from 90s-era R&B band Boyz II Men; the lyrics focused on the tipped minimum wage and gender discrimination in the restaurant industry. Meanwhile, oversized floating banners circled NRA headquarters with the message, “The National Restaurant Association Thinks Women Are Worth $2.13.”

“Women are disproportionately affected by the low tipped minimum wage,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, MomsRising CEO and Executive Director. “The vast majority of restaurant servers are women and in many cases those women are moms and the primary breadwinners in their families. It’s difficult enough to support a family on a single income today, but when you’re earning only $2.13 an hour and rely heavily on tips to make ends meet, it can be nearly impossible to keep your head above water financially. The irony is that these same moms who earn their living serving food often don’t earn enough to put food on the table, make the rent and cover the utilities.”
This event comes just a few weeks after Sen. Tom Harkin introduced legislation in Congress which would raise the tipped minimum wage for the first time in over twenty years. Both Speaker Boehner and the NRA oppose this legislation. In light of the proposed legislation and the W.A.G.E.S. Act (HR 631), ROC and its members organized a second protest on Capitol Hill, shadowing NRA members as they lobbied against better wages for women and working families.

As revealed in ROC United’s recent report Tipped Over the Edge, servers, over 70% of whom are women, have three times the poverty rate of the rest of the United States workforce, and more than half of all restaurant workers live below the federal poverty line for a family of three. ROC United, which works to improve wages and working conditions for the nation’s low-wage restaurant workforce, has been battling to raise the subminimum wage for tipped workers in order to ensure fewer restaurant workers live in poverty.

“In what is one of our fastest-growing industries coming out of the recession, we should really ensure that the men and women who serve us and prepare our food are earning wages that keep them out of poverty,” said Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. “It’s absurd that the minimum wage has remained unchanged for over twenty years despite the massive profits the industry earns. We’re here to tell our leg

The typical full-time, year round, female server is paid only 68 % of what her male colleagues earn. This is a matter of $17,000 vs $25,000 annually.  This is a matter of surviving to barely surviving at all.

While the gender pay gap is not entirely new to the American workforce, it becomes even wider for women who are usually concentrated in the lowest paid occupations (host, counter attendant, food prep, and server) within the industry.  It’s been 21 years since the tipped minimum wage was raised, and it is still stalled at $2.13 for the 10 million workers (half of which are women) in the restaurant industry.

In just one week, on Tuesday, April 17th 50 workers across the country will be traveling to Washington, DC to directly speak to their representatives about raising $2.13.

Will you help the millions of female restaurant workers fight to increase the tipped minimum wage?  Help restaurant workers come to our nation’s capital and tell their representatives that they deserve a livable wage.  We will demand that Congress close the gender gap and pay female restaurant workers a living wage by raising $2.13.

Help us in our goal is to raise $5,000 to support 50 restaurant workers to come from all parts of the country to tell their stories of struggle and triumph.  With your gift, you can help close the gender gap! Donate Today!