BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR

Stories from the Congregation

I've heard it said that restaurants are where American culture happens, and I'd like to test that here today. Please raise your hand if you have celebrated an important life-changing event at a restaurant - maybe a proposal of marriage, a wedding feast, a celebration of a child entering the family. I'd be interested to hear some of the stories ... [congregation stories]. Thank you. A restaurant can hold these magical moments for us and help to give them meaning.

Now, I'd like to ask if there is anyone here who has worked in a restaurant. Do you remember how much you earned? Was it enough to support yourself or your family?

Behind the Kitchen Door We're here to talk about the book chosen by the UUA for this year's common read, Behind the Kitchen Door by Sara Jayaraman [ILR Press, 2013]. It is a book that draws one's attention to exploitive conditions in the restaurant industry. Jayaraman is a woman who was drawn to the plight of restaurant workers when workers at the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center who were not killed during in the 9/11 attacks, we not hired at another newly-opened restaurant owned by the same owner. She was able to gain these workers jobs, and began to understand the situation that many of them live with, eventually forming the Restaurant Opportunities Center in New York. For example,

10 million people employed in the restaurant industry
7 of 11 lowest paying occupations
No sick pay, health pay, vacation, or other benefits
40% undocumented
Wage theft / tip theft / no pay for overtime
Unsafe food handling
Restaurant industry growing but wages are stagnant

I'd like to look a little more closely at some of these situations.

Serving while sick Food is the product of the hands that prepare it and serve it. Yet most restaurant workers don't have sick leave and prepare and serve food while they are sick.

Jayaraman writes in Behind the Kitchen Door, "We don't just find workers serving while sick and a few bad apple restaurants. We find these workers everywhere. ... The National Restaurant Association has been spending years lobbying to [keep] restaurant workers from winning paid sick days. ... So ironically, employers in the one industry in which we as customers would least like to see workers working while sick are the same ones leading the charge against any kind of paid sick days legislation."

In the fall of 2012, Jayaraman's Restaurant Opportunities Center won a major victory for restaurant workers at Del Posto Restaurant in New York City. The settlement agreement includes paid sick days, new procedures for human resources, and over a million dollars of unpaid back wages.

Minimum wage for tipped workers

The National minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 per hour, and has not changed for decades. In California, we are fortunate that the minimum wage for tipped workers is higher here - $9 per hour - same as the regular minimum wage. At the National rate, most people could not support themselves adequately. On top of this, many workers have their wages or their tips stolen, or are forced to punch out of the time clock but keep working, in order to keep their jobs. And they are fired if they complain. Sadly, many restaurant workers qualify for food stamps. Yes, food service workers in the United States need food stamps!

Racism

One of the things that Jayaraman noticed is that there is darker skin as you move from the door to the table to the kitchen of a restaurant. And these jobs are often not upwardly mobile. The Busser and dishwasher unlikely to be promoted to be waiters and maitre des. Jayaraman observed that people who were stuck in the restaurant industry's lowest-paying jobs were predominantly people of color. In a recent national survey of 4,300 restaurant workers, white workers reported a median wage of $14 per hour, while people of color reported a median wage of $9.88 an hour. Ninety-six percent of worker who reported that they earned less than the minimum wage were people of color.

Sexism

In the restaurant industry, as in many other areas of our society, there is a wage gap between men and women. Jayaraman maintains that women in the kitchen are constantly being ghettoized, pushed into pastry positions where they earn less money and have no opportunity of advancement in the restaurant. Sexual harassment of women is common. In 2011, 37 percent of the sexual harassment complaints received by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were filed by women restaurant workers, even though only 7 percent of women in the US work in restaurants. And even with this, many women are afraid to report it because they need their jobs to help support their families

I encourage you to read the book if you haven't. She has many example stories from people's lives to illustrate all of her points about the industry. She also has good things to say about some of the new restaurants who are devoted to treating employees decently. Her group has produced a National Dining Guide that features these restaurants.

Religious Implications - Justice and Inherent Worth

So, why would the UUA want us to read this book, and why are we talking about it in church today? The answer is that it is a matter of living out our UU principles in our daily life.

Many of us find it important that our food be healthy, organic, locally grown, grass-fed, open range, grown sustainably. I know that I make a point of trying to eat a healthy diet; we have a garden at home, and we have created two of them at MPUUC; locally grown produce is healthier for us and for our planning.

Ethical Eating was adopted as a UU Statement of Conscience passed by the delegates at the 2011 General Assembly. That means it is an important statement of what the Unitarian Universalist faith stands for and encourages congregations to become involved with. In addition to these goals for the food, it also includes support for the people in the workforce that prepares that food needs to be considered as well.

This is what it means to value the inherent worth and dignity of people and to believe that justice, equity and compassion are important principles underlying our religion. Not to mention the health of those of us who eat this food. It is making witness of our faith in our everyday lives.

What we all can do - Voting with our forks - The power of a consumer

So what can we do about this as individual UUs? We can vote with our forks! Here are some examples:

We can personally adopt a definition of "sustainable" that includes labor practices and the health of the people who prepare food
We can talk to workers when you visit a restaurant - Marsha and Andrew will talk next about their experience in doing this.
We can engage restaurant owners in a conversation about labor practices. We can tell them:
- As a consumer, it is important to me to eat at restaurants where there were opportunities for everyone to advance and where staff is diverse at all levels.
- I consider the health and well-being of people who touch my food when deciding where to eat out
We can use the National Dining Guide created by Jayaraman's group to restaurants who treat workers well. In this guide, restaurants are graded on wages, benefits, and EO policies. There are 4 in the Bay Area - Berkeley, Emeryville Oakland, and San Francisco. This is similar in intent to a restaurant guide created in the 1950s when segregation was still legal at the All Soul's UU Church in Washington DC for restaurants which would serve integrated clientele.
We can do what we can to help raise the federal minimum wage for tipped workers. A start at this is to support the UUA/UU Service Committee joint statement: Raising the minimum wage is a moral imperative. You can sign this on-line.
Finally, we cannot eat in restaurants where the staff is segregated by race and gender.

In conclusion, I want to suggest that there are small steps that we can take to live out our Unitarian Universalist values. These steps can collectively add up to important big changes in the lives of people who work in the places where those special moments in our lives happen - restaurants.

So may it be.

Amen.