Restaurants are everywhere in the US. There are big chains like the McDonald’s, Burger King, or Taco Bell and there are medium-range family restaurants like the Olive Garden. And apart from these run by big corporations, there are also small family owned restaurants peppered throughout the country.
It is no doubt a very busy industry, and one of the biggest employers in the US. But what most of us visiting these places would not know, unless we have someone working in the hotel business, is that it is also one of the lowest paying industry in the US.
In Forked, Saru Jayaraman looks behind the shining ambience of the restaurants and the courteous serving staff that is trained to believe that the customer is always right. Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. Saru is also a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Forked: A New Standard for American Dining
Author: Saru jayaraman
Pages: 240
Publisher: Oxford University Press (February 2, 2016)
ISBN-10: 0199380473, 978-0199380473
The smiling hostess and the servers may make your meal enjoyable and the special event more special. But behind this facade, there is big problem and horror stories of workers who are classified as tipped.
The author points out that the wages of tipped workers are the lowest in America. So much so that the law in most of the states does not require the employer of the tipped worker to pay more than $2.13 per hour. The law was passed some two decades ago along with the caveat that the wages were frozen at $2.13, forever.
The author shows the reader the ugly side of restaurant business where low wages, long working hours, zero benefits, and incidents of sexual harassment from customers and employers is common.
With Forked: A New Standard for American Dining, the author wants to highlight these problems and appeal to the readers and regular restaurant visiting folks to support ROC United toward removing this wage anomaly and improve the working conditions in the restaurant industry.
But not all corporations in the restaurant business exploit this old law and get away with customers paying for a section of their restaurant workers’ salary. The author, through stories, shows the readers of how some restaurants give all their employees the same wages and provide additional benefits and still make a profit. For restaurant owners, the author points out that the restaurants that pay the standard minimum wage have reduced employee turnover, and, on the contrary, grow at a healthy rate.
Not paying the minimum wage to tipped workers and making them work for tips is not only wrong, but another way of boosting profits. The restaurants not only get to write off whatever salaries they pay as expense, but also get the customers pay for the salary of workers – effectively, earning money from the diners for hiring them. The author makes a strong case how making people work for tips puts a strain on the social welfare resources, when most if these workers have to live off of food stamps, and puts additional burden on the taxpayer.
The author and ROC United wants to change this. And to help customers make the right choice and send a message to restarants owners, they have published an app. The ROC National Diners Guide app helps diners find restaurants that offer at least the minimum wage and are ranked based on the restaurants policies toward their workers.
Forked: A New Standard For American Dining is an eye-opener for diners who have not worked in this industry and neither have anyone who have. The author digs deep into the history of tipping in America, and argues why there should be an end to this practice. The appeal is to both: the restaurant owners and diners. Saru Jayaraman says, it is time to choose where we go from here: keep exploiting the workers, or take the high road and build businesses that provide a livelihood that does not require hard working people to demean themselves for money.