(theme music playing) HOLLAND: Hi everyone out there.

We're live at Politics and Prose.

We have author, Saru Jayaraman in the room with us, we have journalist Jane Black, we're here discussing Saru's book, One Fair Wage.

Without further ado from us at Politics and Prose, we're going to sign it over to Jane Black, author Saru Jayaraman and One Fair Wage worker leader, Dia King.

Thank you all so much.

BLACK: Hi, everybody, I am Jane Black, I'm a journalist here in Washington, D.C. Um, and I'm grateful to be here and excited to join these two great leaders in, um, the, the push for fair wages in America.

I have been covering food and business and economics and all kinds of things for about 15 years, actually, maybe more.

So, for those of you who are here, you're probably familiar with Saru.

She is the president of One Fair Wage and the director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

She's the co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunity Center, which grew into a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers.

And then she went on to launch One Fair Wage as a national campaign to end all sub minimum wages in the United States.

And she is one of the most energetic and effective advocates for fair wages.

I know her as I said, from her work in restaurants, which, um.

you know, have the greatest number of tipped workers.

But in this new book, One Fair Wage, she really highlights the stories of Americans in a variety of industries, from restaurants, to drivers, to men and women who are in prison who worked for pennies while benefiting big corporations.

And the stories really tug at her heartstrings.

But what's interesting to me also, is the way she balances the statistics and the facts that managed to completely blow your mind.

And so I just thought I would start out highlighting a couple of the ones that jumped out at me, including the fact that 40% of the workers with no base wages are single moms, 78% of tipped workers have experienced harassment.

And then this one is crazy.

The vote on the One Fair Wage bill in the House in 2019, was the first one since emancipation to try to eliminate the sub minimum wage.

And so in short, this book, which is very short and very readable, is sort of this arresting proof of why we need change.

And we're gonna talk about all of that, with Saru.

We also have Dia King, who is a One Fair Wage Worker member and a worker leader.

And he has worked as a tipped valet driver and a ride share driver in D.C. and has a lot of experience to share.

So, uh, Saru, do you want to take it away?

JAYARAMAN: Yeah.

Thank you so much, Jane.

The book is coming out at such a timely moment for us and for this movement and frankly, for tipped workers in general and the industry, it's a moment where everything is changing.

There's massive upheaval.

And I really believe this is one of the silver linings of the pandemic.

We are seeing something that's about to end that has been around, yes, since emancipation.

So, just quickly about that history.

Um, as many people know, prior to the pandemic, the restaurant industry, which is the largest employer of all sub minimum wage workers, uh, was the nation's second largest and absolute fastest growing private sector employer, nearly 14 million employees, but was one of the lowest paying employers for generations really since emancipation of slavery when the restaurant industry first demanded the right to hire newly freed slaves, and tried to pay them nothing and have them live entirely on tips.

It was a mutation of tipping, tipping had originated in Feudal Europe as an extra bonus on top of a wage.

When it came to the States, it actually came right before emancipation.

And two things happened at that time.

One, in 1853, prior to 1853, waiters in America were largely men, largely White men, they went on strike in 1853 for higher wages.

They were receiving a full wage, and they went on strike for higher wages.

And the restaurant industry in 1853 responded to their strike by replacing them largely with women.

And then 12 years later, emancipation happened and the restaurant industry found another workforce that it felt that it could exploit for very low wages, uh, Black people and off, offered them nothing and mutated the notion of tipping from being an extra bonus to becoming the wage itself.

So what we have to understand is that there was a wage for waiters in the restaurant industry for all workers in the industry prior to emancipation and prior to 1853.

And it went down to zero just as women and Black people entered the industry, which is why this sub minimum wage that exists today, which is currently $2.13 at the federal level, can't be seen as anything other than a devaluation of women's worth and Black lives.

It really cannot be seen as anything else, because it literally went to zero as these... as Black people and women entered the industry.

So that became law in 1938, as everybody got the right to the minimum wage as part of the new deal for the first time, except Black workers were left out, farm workers were mostly Black were left out, domestic workers were mostly Black were left out, and tipped workers who were mostly Black, actually mostly women at the time, were left out until you get a zero dollar wage as long as tips bring you to the full minimum wage, and we went from zero in 1938, all the way up to that $2.13 wage today.

Now, Washington, D.C. is a little bit higher because of our efforts.

It's $5 an hour, but D.C. and 43 states in the U.S. persist with this legacy of slavery, uh, for a mostly female workforce.

As Jane mentioned up nearly three quarters of, of tipped workers in the U.S. are women.

They are largely women working in very casual restaurants.

IHOPs, Denny's, Applebee's, mom-and-pop diners.

Even in D.C. they work in very casual restaurants overwhelmingly, they're disproportionately people of color and immigrants, uh, and, and of course women of color in particular.

And even prior to the pandemic they struggled with the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry in the U.S.

In fact, Professor Catherine MacKinnon who is the nation's foremost scholar, in fact coined the term sexual harassment has said that tipped workers in the restaurant industry, the rate of sexual harassment among tipped workers in the restaurant industry, dwarfs all other industries in her words, including the military.

And that was prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, there were seven states that got rid of this system, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana and Alaska, all requiring a full minimum wage with tips on top.

And besides having higher restaurant sales, higher job growth, higher small business growth rates, they also had one half the rate of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, which again Professor Catherine MacKinnon has said in her view, and in her experience, the most effective policy than she's seen in any industry, she said it's more effective than naming sexual harassment as illegal.

Uh, the most effective policy in cutting sexual harassment she's ever seen, is paying workers a full minimum wage because when you do, these workers aren't as completely reliant on tips to feed their families, they're not as dependent on the whims and biases of customers.

Well, that power dynamic between women servers and male customers got so much worse with the pandemic.

With the pandemic, six million restaurant workers lost their jobs.

That's one in four Americans lost their jobs in the restaurant industry.

We started a relief fund last year, raised a lot of money very quickly and it all went out the door because 250,000 workers applied for relief to us and two thirds, 63% said that they couldn't get unemployment insurance in most states and why Washington, D.C. because they were told in too many instances that that sub minimum wage was too low to qualify for benefits.

We heard that from so many workers that, you know, after the injustice of being paid a sub minimum wage, then they were told you're paid too little to get... Yeah, it's the same benefits that everybody else got.

So people went back to work last summer before they felt safe and overwhelmingly we did thousands of surveys of these workers who came to us for relief.

And they told us when they went back to work, tips were way down because sales were down, and health risks and hostility and sexual harassment were way up with thousands of women reporting, they were regularly asked, "Take off your mask, so I can see how cute you are before I decide how much to tip you."

"Take off your mask, so I can see the pretty face of my server before I decide how much to tip."

And that was a breaking point.

We saw last year itself, last summer, last fall, even that moment where workers were told you earn too little to get benefits.

Last year itself, millions of workers started leaving this industry.

So I think the press started reporting on what they call the worker shortage this year, because when restaurants tried to reopen this year, they found they didn't have enough people, but we were rep, we were talking about it last year, people are leaving, people are leaving.

And it's not a worker shortage, it's a wage shortage.

Calling it a worker shortage... And I, I love this one article I read saying calling a worker shortage is like saying there's a, there's a, there's a dearth of Mercedes Benzes for $1,000.

It's not that the workers don't exist, they're just not willing to work for two and three and four and $5 anymore.

And as a result, um, we published a, a study in May, surveyed 50, oh, 3,000 workers across the country.

53% of workers who remain say they're leaving and 78%.

That's nearly 80% of workers said the only thing that would make them stay or return to work in restaurants is a full livable wage with tips on top.

So that's what made, um, Jane's article so incredible.

I know we'll talk about it more, but Jane's article in The New York Times really captured this moment we've been experiencing over the last couple of over the last month, really.

Month and a half, two months of literally, we are now documenting thousands of restaurants, many of whom fought this in the past or said it wasn't possible to pay people a full minimum wage, now paying, and we've documented at this point, nearly 3,000 restaurants in 41 sub minimum wage states paying a median wage of $14 plus tips on top.

Again, many restaurants who said it was impossible.

So that brings me to the policy fight, then I'll turn it over to Dia.

But you know, we've been fighting on this issue for many years.

And those of you who are in D.C., remember it well, we... Look, we won this on the ballot in Maine, and the Restaurant Association poured a lot of money into overturning it.

You know, we won this overwhelmingly on the ballot in Washington, D.C. in 2018.

And again, the Restaurant Association put a lot of money into fighting it and overturning it, We won this in Michigan.

So in each instance, we saw the Restaurant Association put a lot of money into fighting it to overturning it.

And, um, it was, it was that realization that they were pouring a lot of money into overturning the will of the people in a lot of different places that made us feel like this is a bigger fight, we've hit a nerve, and this is about something much bigger than just a number, two, three, four, $5.

It is fundamentally about this notion of a sub minimum wage.

And really, truly whether it's tipped workers and among tipped workers, of course, there's restaurant workers, there's parking attendants like Dia, there're gig workers who earn tips.

But there's also incarcerated workers as Jane mentioned, and workers with disabilities and youth in many states get a sub minimum wage.

Um, across the board, you're looking at several legacies of slavery that results in a sub minimum wage.

But across the board, you're looking at all of the sub minimum wages being a reflection of America's valuation of some people as subhuman, whether it was women and Black people at emancipation, whether it was Black and Brown people who are incarcerated as a direct legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and chain gangs in the United States, whether it's people with disabilities seen as less than, and therefore deserving of less than a minimum wage.

Across the board, why is it that we allow anybody to be paid less than a minimum?

Isn't the word minimum meant to imply there's nothing less than it?

And yet, here we have.

(laughs) Here almost one in ten Amer, working Americans able to earn less than a minimum.

And so what can that mean, except that some people are worthless or subhuman, uh, compared to others?

And so the exciting news, the exciting, exciting news is that despite that heavy fight that we've been in with the Restaurant Association for really two decades, we are at a precipice, we are at a moment of change where because so many restaurants have now moved in this direction are now paying 15, 20.

We've tracked some restaurants paying 25 and $30 an hour.

I even found a restaurant in Massachusetts paying 50 bucks an hour plus tips.

Um, this moment of change has resulted in a real change in the opposition.

And what was a vitriolic fight between us and the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington has turned now into a dialogue between us, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., and city leadership in D.C. around a bill, a legislation that would get us to one fair wage, to $15.

Many of you know we've been moving a ballot measure, which Dia will talk about more.

Um, and that ballot measure continues, and it will be on the ballot next year, um, but there's a real effort to actually get there faster, potentially through legislation in a way that is just a total reversal of everything we were, you know, fighting over in 2018.

So I think we're in a moment... And we're not just seeing this here in D.C.

In New York, uh, the new governor is indicating that she's gonna move in this direction in the next month or two and the sub minimum wage in New York.

Um, we're hearing the same from Massachusetts restaurants that they're willing now to support ending the sub minimum wage in Massachusetts.

So, we're seeing this rolling momentum.

And we hope that Congress is listening and that if we can figure out something in D.C. to overcome the fight of the past and move into a more sustainable future, then for God's sakes Congress can figure that out too, and pass the rage, the Raise of Wage Act at the federal level.

So I'll stop there, and hand it over to Dia.

Thank you for being here, Dia.

KING: Thank you, uh, Politics and Prose and Jane Black for a, allowing us to speak.

And I wanna thank you as well Miss Saru, uh, for allowing me to, uh, uh, speak my...

Allowing me to be heard.

My name is Dia King, I am a native Washingtonian, and I live in Ward seven.

Uh, the D.C ballot initiative impacts me personally, because I have worked as a tip valet worker since...

Tipped valet driver, excuse me, since, uh, 2014.

And I've been working to advance the, for fair wages for tipped workers in D.C. for many years.

Uh, parking valets, like me earn the sub minimum wage for tipped workers in over 43 states, including Washington, D.C.

When I first got this kind of job, I thought, because it was mostly tips I would be, it would be more lucrative.

When you get tips people automatically think you make a killing, but in reality, my checks and tips aren't that great.

The current law allows discrimination because the sub minimum wage for tipped workers perpetuates ha, harassment and discrimination against women, people of color and immigrants.

The sub minimum wage is a legacy of slavery and has always been unjust, but the pandemic has made our bad situation worse.

Tips went down, health risk and harassment went up.

And most of us didn't get unemployment benefits or pandemic relief.

Things have really been...

I'm sorry.

Things have been really bad for our city's most vulnerable, who work in the service industry.

We have, we have an opportunity to rebuild a post pandemic D.C. restaurant and hospitality industry, an economy that is just and fair, and values everyone for how hard we work.

Right now, a lot of restaurants and hotels have been talking about how they are short staffed because no one wants to work.

The reality is that rea, restaurants aren't facing a worker shortage, they're facing a wage shortage.

We love working in restaurants and as parking attendants for hotels, boosting the city's, city's tourism and economy.

We, we, want to come back to work fully, we just want to be paid a fair full wage with tips on top like everybody else.

If we had a full minimum wage, that wouldn't be the case and we would have been in a better place at the onset, onset of the pandemic.

It just doesn't make sense to go back for higher risks, substantially worse customer aggression and hostility and so few, fewer tips.

We're fed up and we're asking the D.C. council to end the legacy of slavery and unfair system once and for all.

The essential worker, the woman on the cover is our mascot.

Yes, the big statue on a woman on, the woman on the cover.

I set that up, me and Elena.

We make a good team.

We traveled all around the country.

We've been to New York City, Philly, Detroit, New Jersey, if you don't have 15 plus tips, me and Elena and One Fair Wage crew are coming to your town.

All jokes aside, this has been one of the deepest relationships I've had in the last year.

That's my girl, don't mess with her.

But seriously.

(laughs) Elena is important to our collective movement for justice and liberation for all workers, because when she is set up, she looks great.

She brings attention to One Fair Wage, and inspires us all to fight, don't starve.

Thank you for being here tonight.

And please continue to stay involved with the D.C. campaign.

BLACK: Thank you so much.

So Saru, I just want to come to you for a second, when I hear you talk, there's so much passion and so much fluency in kind of the history and the statistics, and you know, the specific worker stories, but I always found myself wondering, like, what, who... Wha...

I wanna know more about her.

You know, how did she get into this?

And I know there's a 9/11 colle, connection to, you know, the Restaurant Opportunities, um, network, but... And I also get the sense you don't really wanna talk about yourself, but I'm gonna make you do it just a little bit at the beginning.

So tell me, us how you got started, if you've ever been a tipped worker, and then sort of how you got to where you are now.

JAYARAMAN: Yeah.

I have not been a tipped worker myself.

Um, my parents...

Uh, I do... My family did own restaurants in India, um, but they are immigrants from India.

And when they came, um, they struggled a lot.

And so for me, it was initially a, a feeling of resonance with immigrant workers.

And, and that's why on 9/11, when 9/11 happened and I was asked to, um, start a relief center in the aftermath of the tragedy for a, a population of mostly immigrant workers working at this restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, you know, 73 workers died that morning, almost all immigrants and, um, and another 13,000 restaurant workers lost their jobs in the months and weeks following the tragedy.

So, we started as a relief center post 9/11 that I initially was, you know, very drawn to this industry, because of my parents are immigrants and because it's such an immigrant heavy industry.

You know, in D.C., I think people may not realize tipped workers are majority immigrants.

They're not actually majority White people working in fancy fine dining restaurants, they're majority immigrants, 70% people of color.

Um, and they're largely working in very casual restaurants, but also as parking attendants, nail salon workers, it's wide range.

So, that's what initially drew me in.

But of course, once you're drawn in and you start meeting restaurant workers, and then other tipped workers like Dia, um, you know, you, you, at least for me, I felt like there was no other...

There was no other place I needed to be because this industry is so huge, the history is so wrong.

Most people didn't know the history.

Um, it really to me is the epitome of both what's wrong in terms of economic inequality in this country and our democracy that you've got a trade lobby, the National Restaurant Association, which is really driven by the chains, IHOPs, Denny's Applebee's, Olive Gardens, that's been around for over 100 years really driving this boondoggle for not just the restaurant industry but now, other industries are starting to emulate it, not just parking attendant companies like Dia's but really truly the big gig companies in many ways have emulated what the restaurant industry is doing by deducting from delivery workers payments based on how much they get tipped.

It's the same exact idea.

So, it's the origins are horrible, the impact has been horrible, and it really truly is, for me the epitome of what we need to change, what we need to address.

Fundamentally, you know, the idea of the 1% versus the 99%.

And the need to really write some of our structural historical racism and wrongs in this country.

So that's what drives me personally.

BLACK: Yeah, I mean, I did notice the way you, you wiggled out of your personal story to talk about the important issues again, but I will circle back and try you again.

But, um, no, I mean, I think one of the, as I said before, it's like you have this fluency with sort of the, the history and, and, you know, a real kind of passion and empathy for the people that you're working for.

And that's sort of what's evident in this book.

Um, but you know, in the book, you know, you do lay out the history at the beginning, but then it's really a story of people.

And I think that this, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why you wrote this book this way.

Why are the stories of the people so important?

JAYARAMAN: Well, I mean, I, I think what I've come to realize over the years is that when we walk away from this event, you may not remember the data I shared, but you, you probably will remember Dia's story, um, because you're such a special person Dia.

(laughs) Um, you...

It can... And because, you know, he's lived it.

I mean, I think people connect with humans and stories much more than they do with data or history.

And so understanding how this impacts the lives of, you know, Dia as a parking attendant, or Jamie, as a restaurant worker, a tipped restaurant worker, um, who's, who's been consistently tipped less because she's Black, um, or, uh, you know, or Vianne or Anhell, who are Uber and Lyft driver, Postmates delivery workers.

I mean, just you read these stories, and it's hard to say no, they don't deserve.

They don't deserve a full minimum wage.

Because, um, you, you hopefully, if you read the stories, and you understand not just, not just their work, but who they are as a human being, their story of how they grew up.

And you know, how they fell in love in some cases, or how their parents fell in love, just who they are as a human being, my hope was that that was an ability for us to connect as humans, and then come to an agreement that if we all are humans, our common humanity means nobody can be paid less than a minimum wage.

Because again, a sub minimum really reflects our evaluation of some people as subhuman.

So it is important to understand humanity, it is important to understand those stories in order to understand why nobody should be paid less.

BLACK: And I know that I'm mostly going to be asking Saru questions, but Dia, you're here with us.

And you are one of the people in this book.

And I want... You know, you gave us a sort of rousing speech, but I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what happened to you after, you know, when things shut down, and, you know, what that meant for you personally, and how, I mean, it's hard to say this is over, right?

But as things have opened up, what has changed for you?

So tell us just, you know, briefly kind of what your experience was during the pandemic.

KING: They actually laid us off, uh, when the pandemic came, and, and, and now they're trying to get us to come back, uh, to work, but, but nobody really wants to go back to work for a sub minimum wage.

And before, before the pandemic, they weren't really treating us that well.

So, now workers are... At least what, what they're saying is that a worker shortage isn't always actually a wage shortage, and that folks are not trying to go back.

I'm not trying to go back and, and get the same type of abuse that I got, uh, before the pandemic, you know.

I, I'm looking into other avenues, you know, doing something, something different because the service industry may not be where it is anymore.

You know, I think, I think a lot of people are probably going to migrate to other, um, uh, uh, other... What's the word I'm trying to say?

Uh, um, uh, o, other ways of making money, or other jobs.

And that's what I'm thinking about myself right now, you know, doing something a little different than what I was doing, because it seemed like these guys don't, don't, um, they don't, they don't respect us.

Um, I got into this...

I've, I've been a tipped worker and from the book, I've been at worker since 2014, I've been working on, uh, uh, uh, the One Fair Wage since 2014.

And since I live in D.C., we, we did a whole lot of work on raising the minimum wage in D.C. And we actually raised the minimum wage that was out there hollering with them, "can't survive on 7.25, can't survive on 7.25?"

Right?

Um, and they actually raised the minimum wage, but because I was a tipped worker, I was not able to be a, a benefit of my own work.

So, uh, when this came around, I wanted to make sure, uh, hopefully, we can raise the minimum wage for everybody across the board, no one has to be under employed or underpaid.

BLACK: Great.

Thank you for sharing that.

I'm coming back to Saru.

Um, we...

So you had mentioned in your introduction, it was the question I had had for you.

Because I was really struck when we spoke a couple of weeks ago about how you know, you were talking about how, um, people who are in the sub minimum wage wouldn't, didn't qualify for unemployment.

And one of the things that you said, which really struck me, was how that was like a moment for them.

They weren't necessarily unhappy until they realize they earn so little that they didn't qualify for unemployment at this time when masses of people were being laid off.

Talk to me a little bit about that.

Like, you know, I think when you're sitting cozily in your house on a Zoom call, you're like, "Of course, they know that that doesn't make sense."

But talk to me a little bit about the, the sort of awareness and, and how that has shifted.

JAYARAMAN: I wouldn't say that they weren't unhappy.

I mean, we...

They were... We were fighting for this with workers like Dia and many others for many years.

Workers have been suffering with a sub minimum wage for 150 years and have reported very high rates of harassment and very high rates of economic instability and poverty.

But I do think you're right that we heard from so many workers that there was kind of an epiphany that happened with the pandemic, when, uh, everybody else was able to get unemployment insurance, and so many tipped workers were told you, uh, not you, not you, even though you've been working full time, or more than full time, in some cases, multiple jobs, you don't get it because even if you reported your tips, your employer never reported your tips.

And so it looks like you just earned that three or four or $5 wage.

And so you, it looks like you didn't earn enough.

I will tell you the story of a woman in Michigan where the wage is $3.52.

And, uh, she said, "I..." She's a mom to a, a special needs child, lives in upstate Michigan, worked at a dive bar small, dive bar in a small town.

She said, "I religiously every year reported my tips to the IRS, but when I went to apply for unemployment insurance with the shutdown, I was told that my boss never reported my tips.

And so they told me I earned too little to qualify for unemployment insurance."

She said then I applied to the federal because unlike the state unemployment insurance in most states, the Federal was supposed to be based not on your income, you should be able to get it regardless of your income.

She was told yes, "You're eligible to get the federal unemployment insurance," but she could never access it because it came through the state system and the state had markers of denial.

So here's a mom with a special needs child shut out of work, no work no access to unemployment insurance, felt very uncomfortable about going back to work in a pandemic being... And she said, "I was...

When I went back, I was repeatedly asked to take off my mask so I can see how cute you are."

I mean, exposing yourself in that way to the virus for a chance to get a tip means exposing your family also to the virus.

If you have special needs children or immunocompromised family members, think about how scary that is.

So, there was this epiphany that workers faced either in that first moment when they were told you don't earn enough where they were, they said, "Wait a second, if the government is telling me I don't earn enough to get benefits, probably I don't earn enough and I need to walk away."

Or it was when they went back to work and they found tips were way down and they were asked to do so much more for so much less.

Now they had to enforce social distancing and mask rules.

And now COVID vaccination rules on the same customers from whom they had to get tips to make up their base wage, it was an impossible situation.

Workers said, "Listen, either I am not gonna enforce these rules, what if...

Which affects my health and everybody's health, or I am gonna enforce it and then not get any tips.

I'm gonna get retaliated against."

And by the way, 70% of workers told us if I try to enforce these rules, I'll get tipped less.

85% of Black workers told us if I try to enforce these rules, I'll get tipped, tipped less.

So Black workers were even more retaliated against for trying to enforce these COVID rules.

And it was just too much.

They reached a breaking point either when they were told you earn too little to get benefits, or later when they were asked to do more, so much more for so much less.

So much more health risk and harassment for so, so much less in, in tips.

It was just, it was a moment of...

It was a breaking point.

It was a real... BLACK: Yeah.

JAYARAMAN: Breaking point.

BLACK: I mean what's interesting though, of course is that you know, obviously that the pandemic has exacerbated everything.

I mean, not that there... We haven't talked about some potential silver linings maybe.

Um, but you know, in the book, you talk a lot about the struggle of immigrants.

And I mean, I think it's important to realize that this wasn't, it isn't just terrible because of the pandemic, right?

I mean, we're, as you have noted, we were in a bad situation before.

And you know, I know most about the restaurant industry, but you know, immigrants are a huge part of the restaurant industry and other tipped industries as well.

And they feel and then there's a story in the book, um, where you talk about this in, in right outside of Washington, D.C., where they, they feel and are treated as if they have no power.

Like, both by management, you know, and customers.

Like, if you don't like this, you know, forget it.

And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that story in the book?

And if there's any good news on this?

(laughs) I'd love to hear it.

JAYARAMAN: Um, I mean, yes.

Look, there's a power dynamic that already exists in our industry with the tips, um, and people feeling like they have to put up with anything and everything in order to get the tips.

If you layer on top of that for immigrants, their inability in the past at least to stand up, felt... At least they felt like they couldn't speak up for themselves because of the fear, not just of being fired, but being deported for having Homeland Security called on them.

There's, there's always a sense of a fear and a power that some employers wielded over workers perhaps not always in the best way.

But I do think there's a silver lining, cause we've seen all kinds of workers stand up and say, "En, enough is enough."

You know, it isn't just, uh, White workers or Black workers, it's all workers across the industry and across multiple industries.

I mean, we're hearing this among farm workers that they're not willing to put up with anything less than... Actually, in many states, we're seeing states paying now 17 and 18 and more for farm workers, because we're seeing across multiple industries, workers are generally saying, you know, we're done.

We're done with this, these conditions, we're done with this level of work.

And, and I gotta say for people who are like, "Oh, no, they're just staying home, lazy collecting unemployment insurance, or there's some reason why there's, they're not willing to go back."

We actually specifically looked at five states, I saw New Hampshire mentioned in the quest Q&A.

I'm really happy to talk about New Hampshire, cause we specifically looked at New Hampshire, which prematurely cut unemployment insurance because they thought it would send workers back to work, we found 53% of workers nationally said we don't wanna go back to restaurants, 60% of workers in New Hampshire, after they cut unemployment insurance prematurely said they wouldn't go back.

And we did ask workers, is it the wage?

Is it COVID?

Is it childcare?

Is it... You know, what is it?

We asked like 15 different things, and 80% of workers said it's the wage.

BLACK: Mm-hmm.

JAYARAMAN: It's the wage.

I will not go back unless I get paid a full livable wage with tips on top.

And every other answer was 40 or 50 percentage points less whether it was COVID, or harassment or childcare or anything else.

So, workers have been very clear, it's the wage.

That's the problem.

BLACK: Right.

And, and you know, it's interesting that you, you say that, because, you know, obviously, the, the, the journalists with their little names they've been calling this, Striketober.

Right?

You know, because we've got Kellogg's, cereal plant workers and Hollywood, production people.

And you know, there is this late, you know, burgeoning emerging labor movement.

So what is the status of the Raise the Wage Act?

So tell us what the Raise the Wage Act said.

It did not get into the COVID relief package.

So, is there any chance that we're gonna see movement on this?

JAYARAMAN: Yeah, sure.

The Raise the Wage Act is something that President Biden has been pushing since last year, and even before that, so it would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and fully phase out the sub minimum wage for both tipped workers and workers with disabilities.

Joe Biden made it part of his campaign platform last year, and then this year, he actually made it part of his first COVID relief package, which he introduced even before he got inaugurated.

This has been, and they've been very clear one of their top priorities, they want to see this bill passed.

He's also been very clear specifically about tipped workers.

I don't know how many people saw him at the CNN town hall in July, where a restaurant owner got up and said, "I don't have enough workers, what are you going to do for me?"

And President Biden said, "You gotta raise your wage."

He said, "My sister in law is of tip worker in Atlantic City, she's earning what?

Seven or eight plus tips, workers want $15 an hour plus tips."

So he's been very clear about this.

And you know, he did try to make it part of the first COVID package, the parliamentarian kicked it out.

But it is, it is very possible.

In fact, we're on Capitol Hill tomorrow.

It is very possible that, uh, this bill can move on its own more so now than ever, because as I was describing earlier, there is a new, uh, willingness among many restaurant owners or not just willingness, excuse me, desire.

Eagerness among restaurant owners to see legislation passed.

Why?

We are hearing from so many thousands of restaurants across the country that are now paying 13, 14, 15, $20 an hour, saying, "I'm doing this, uh, now I have to, I have to do it to, to get workers to come back to work.

Um, and I wanna do it, but I don't, I cannot do it alone, it's gotta be a level playing field."

All companies have to go up together.

And both because it's not fair that I do it and Denny's and IHOP don't do it, but also because we need consumer spending to go up across the board.

Um, so they say it needs to be a level playing field, but the second thing they're saying, which is really interesting is I'm raising my wages, and I still don't have enough workers.

And it's because, uh, workers don't trust that this is permanent policy.

This is permanent wage increases.

You know, there's been so much talk of temporary hiring bonuses.

The workers are like, "Well, I left this industry, how do I trust that you alone paying 15, you're not gonna go back to three or $5 next year?"

And so there's a real employers are saying we need policy change, we need to pass the Raise the Wage Act, or similar bills at the state level in order to get workers to come back to work.

BLACK: So this story that we connected on that I wrote in The New York Times was about a certain set of restaurants that were doing their best not only to raise the, it to $15 plus tips, but to even out, you know, and this is sort of more complicated for people who don't know the ins and out of this, but to even out the wages between what's called the front of the house, which are the people who are servers in the back of the house, who are the cooks.

And you know, there was a lot, there were some really interesting stories and people who were trying really hard to make it happen.

And struggling, frankly, um, and you know, I admire those people so much.

And we can talk about the specifics of them and who succeeded and who didn't.

But at the end of the day, most of the people I have talked to who were, you know, largely white tablecloth restaurants, were doing it for at a, at a disadvantage to themselves.

You know, there were tax disadvantages, there were, you know, money disadvantage, and they were like, "I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do."

And I just kind of felt like, "Well, great, but that's not the way we make systemic change.

We don't expect people to do something that disadvantages them."

You know, I mean, it would be nice if everybody did everything for the greater good.

But I'm just wondering, like, what you think about that, like, is what's happening where these individual people are doing it enough?

Or do you...

I mean, I'm guessing you feel that we need the legislation in order to make it or, or some sort of tax legislation that, you know, gives them back the tip credit, or whatever it is.

JAYARAMAN: Yeah.

In fact, we are, uh... (laughs) We are...

I'm right now sitting in a hotel in Washington, D.C., sorry for all the background.

But we're here at a conference of amazing restaurant owners who have come in from all over the country, who are all saying the same thing.

We cannot do this alone, we need it to be policy so everybody goes up together.

This is the right thing to do for our industry, it's the only future for our industry.

You listen to some of these employers, and they'll say yes, we are struggling, but we cannot envision ever going back to the way things were.

We can't do it.

Like you can't, you can't experience...

It's funny I, I, I wonder sometimes if people really understand capitalism and supply and demand, because you can't go up to 15 this year and think, “Oh, we'll go back to two and $3 next year."

Workers aren't gonna buy that.

It's just not gonna happen.

And so a lot of employers know that want to figure it out.

And are saying... Are here in D.C., cause they wanna tell Congress, we want to do this, but we can't do it alone.

It's gotta be universal.

It's gotta be a level playing field.

We've all got to move up together.

BLACK: Mm-hmm, yeah.

And there has been a shift.

I mean, I think certainly during the pandemic, there have been a bunch of independent restaurateurs who have gotten together and, you know, had quite a bit more clout than they did previously.

Whereas it used to just be the National Restaurant Association, which you can tell us, tell everybody what we call them.

JAYARAMAN: We call them the other NRA, yes.

(laughs) And they've been a real dinosaur on the issue.

You know, I think...

But again, I have so much hope because we're even seeing members of the NRA now paying, leaders of the NRA, who said can't be done, can never pay more than two and $3, now paying 13, 14, 15 plus tips.

So, clearly it can be done.

We just need to help them stay there.

We need to help them maintain it.

BLACK: Right.

So, we have a bunch of questions.

I'm gonna open it up.

I'm, I, I have to skim through them while you answer this first one.

I'm gonna go to the New Hampshire question because you mentioned that you wanna to talk about New Hampshire.

So, this says, "I have a friend in New Hampshire who is a very progressive Democrat, he always votes blue, he owns a catering business, his business barely survived the pandemic and he's still barely breaking even.

He pays his workers over minimum wage and says he'll have to close his business or the minimum wage rises to $15.

What do you say to him?"

JAYARAMAN: Yeah.

I'm, I'm so happy, I would love to talk to your friend in New Hampshire, because I would say at least three things, but many more as well.

Maybe four.

One is, well, we've actually now documented over 100 restaurants in New Hampshire, now paying a median wage of $15 plus tips, the minimum wage in New Hampshire is $3.27.

On all these restaurants, many of whom said the exact same thing can't be done, can't be done, can't be done, are now doing it.

Um, two, it has been done, restaurants are doing it in red and blue states, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana, and Alaska, they've been doing it for many years, the industry is actually growing faster in those states, those states lost fewer people, no, lost fewer restaurants during the pandemic because co, consumer spending was higher in those states, it was up higher.

Um, and you know, those states are doing really well.

Small businesses like your friend's catering business are actually flourishing in those states.

The third thing I would say, is that all of the legislation that is moving anywhere in the country moves up slowly over time.

So, nobody's being asked to go from two to 15 overnight, at least in the federal bill, it's talking about a gradual phase into 15 over time, although I got to tell you, many employers who are now paying 15 in New Hampshire are saying, "We want everybody to get there as fast as possible, because we need a level playing field."

And the fourth thing I would say that I think a lot of restaurant owners don't know, is that we actually got a bill passed in Congress in 2018 that actually allows, that says... You know, in 2017, President Trump tried to make tips the property of owners rather than workers and we mobilized 400,000 people to stop that from happening, got a bill passed in Congress saying tips are the property of workers now and forever.

And we said, if you pay everybody a full minimum wage tips can be shared as you were mentioning, Jane with the back of the house.

And so your friend in New Hampshire, actually would be able to increase equity between front and back, kitchen and dining room staff, uh, by moving to a full minimum wage, and then being able to, to share tips among non-management employees.

So there's a real advantage to employers.

On top of all of that, we have been pushing in D.C., in New York, at the federal level, all these additional supports, tax credits and grants and all these additional supports to help employers get there not to mention we have done, we've created a calculator and a guide to show restaurants how to do it profitably profiling other restaurants in New Hampshire and Maine that have moved in this direction over the last several months, and done so really successfully.

So I think that, everything I've just said you could share.

But one key thing I'd love to share is that if anybody's willing and open to it, we can introduce them both to materials to show them how to do it and peers in their own states who are already doing it.

BLACK: Thank you.

So here's another question, um, which is an interesting one.

"Inflation is on the rise, which necessitates a rise in the minimum wage, but raising wages to $15 an hour could lead to more inflation, damaging the economy and making Trump more electable in 2024.

What are your thoughts on this likely and serious problem?"

JAYARAMAN: So, I, I th... You know, we've, we've kind of been operating on a scarcity model in the United States where we wanna suppress everything, we wanna suppress costs and suppress wages unnaturally.

I think most restaurant owners will tell you that food costs are suppressed unnaturally, menu prices are suppressed unnaturally.

And that is true for labor in the United States as well.

What workers are saying in the millions, is that wages have been suppressed unnaturally for way too long, and they're just not willing to accept it anymore.

So, if it were the case that raising the minimum wage was gonna make prices skyrocket, then I live in California, I, you, you would come to California and prices would be ridiculous.

They would be out of the roof because we have a $15 minimum wage for all workers, including servers with tips on top.

We have done menu price comparisons between the same restaurants in California, San Francisco, L.A. and Washington, D.C.

The same menu prices, tipping is higher, small business growth rates are higher.

Why?

Why is that?

It's because it is not a one to one dollar to dollar increase, it's not like you raise wages by $1 and prices go up by $1.

That's not actually how it works.

A single worker or server serves multiple people.

Uh, it's not, it's not a dollar for dollar increase, your, your, your price, your, your menu prices don't double because the wage increases over time.

And we've seen that in the seven states that they've increased wages.

You're looking at a moderate price increase, and we've actually studied it and we have a calculator that shows that if you go from two to $15 an hour, it's about a 22, at most 22% price increase, which means your burger would go from $10 to $12 an hour, over what?

A ten year period to get from $2 to $15 an hour.

$2 increase over a ten year period.

And so... And we studied this by looking at price elasticity across the country with economists at UC Berkeley, and the highest we've ever seen it go up is 22% for a wage increase from two to $15 an hour.

So, it's just not the case that prices go way up when you raise the wage, it's not a dollar for dollar, uh, increase.

And most importantly, I think the most important point people tend to forget is that when wages go up, consumption goes up, people are able to support the economy.

And so rather than saying, we've got to keep labor very low, and therefore cost very low, to help people afford it, I will tell you people aren't affording it.

They're saying actually, they can't afford to work in restaurants, which is why they're walking out.

So we have basically two choices, raise the wage, increase consumption, that will allow our economy to come back, or cut the industry in half, because 54% of workers are walking off the job.

BLACK: We have...

I have two questions that I'm gonna combine here, because we have maybe time for this one and one more, or maybe just this one, we'll see.

So one person says, "I learned in high school French that at least, at least at the time that France operated under a, le service compris, which is the "tip is included".

Would U.S. tipped workers be better served if we adopted this model?

I.e.

restaurants would charge higher prices that included tips."

And then I'm combining it with this one, which is you know, wouldn't it be reasonable to pay a minimum wage and then have something on the menu that said, you know, this includes the, the tip, so you only need to tip if there's exceptional service.

So let's talk about like different tip models, you know, and the European example.

JAYARAMAN: We are supportive.

We are agnostic on the kind of model employers take.

Um, to us, the most important thing is that everybody's paid a base wage that they can count on.

And frankly, that is what workers are saying right now.

We all want a base wage that we can count on.

And anything above that, you know, any kind of gratuities or tips need to be above that.

Not instead of that, and so really, there are three models that employers have looked at when it comes to paying a full minimum wage with gratuities on top.

One is what I was describing earlier, which is really the most popular among restaurants across the country, which is pay everybody a full minimum wage, have the tips be shared among all non-management staff, front and back of house.

That's one model.

A second model is a full minimum wage and a service charge.

And that model, people have been moving in that direction more and more, especially after the murder of George Floyd, because the, the data is now irrefutable, really just irrefutable that consumers have overwhelming implicit bias, that unconscious bias results in workers of color and women and particularly women of color, always getting tipped less, no matter how perfect their service is.

There's a professor at Cornell University hospitality, School of Hospitality Management, Michael Lin, who spent his whole life getting data from large companies, and documenting now beyond reasonable doubt that workers of color even when they, when they provide what he calls perfect service, always get tipped less, even if they provide better or perfect service compared to White counterpart.

And so many people after the murder of George Floyd said, "We do need to move away from a model in which basically workers income is determined by whether the customer likes the way they look, or has some bias about them."

And so that's why service charges which are just a kind of, uh, sort of like a, a feed, a fixed, uh, pri, pri, a fixed gratuity on top of the price on top of the wage have become more and more popular.

And then the last model is this, all included, hospitality included.

And for us, it doesn't matter which of these an employer wants to... We think employers should have the freedom to pick which of these options they wanna pick.

The most important thing is that we're moving in a direction where people have more stability, they're better off both workers and employers.

There's more equity between front and back and between people of different races and genders.

This is the future of the industry, it is the future that frankly, workers are, are saying we, we won't go back unless we get it.

And now so many employers have joined in saying, this is the future, we have to move in this direction.

But we need support to do it.

We need federal government and state governments to make it a level playing field.

BLACK: So I'm going to do one more question, "How can we all regardless of position strive to ensure within our common humanity, that harassment is identified and handled properly without repercussions to the workers?

Do we need more government not less in this area, specifically, especially sexual harassment and racial and other discrimination?"

JAYARAMAN: Yeah.

You probably guess what I was gonna say.

BLACK: She's gonna say less government.

I know it.

JAYARAMAN: Uh, no, no, no.

I mean, I don't know if you call it less government, or more government.

I, I just know that in our industry, there is now like I said, just no doubt that the most effective way to cut sexual harassment and cut racial discrimination is to pay everybody a, a full minimum wage.

Like the data is now just so irrefutable.

In, in fact, um, Professor Catherine MacKinnon who has spent her life, you know, she's the foremost legal scholar on sexual harassment in the United States.

She has said two things.

She said, the rate of sexual harassment among tipped restaurant workers, dwarfs all other industries, including the military, and she has studied her life, studying sexual...

Spent her life studying sexual...

The second thing she said is, "I have never seen a policy more effective at cutting sexual harassment than One Fair Wage," including she has said, naming sexual harassment as illegal, which has been her life's work.

That's been her life's work, is naming it illegal.

Why?

Because you can, you know, we can all do things about sexual harassment, we can make it illegal, we can help worker sue, we can set up a legal defense fund, we can call it out when we see it, we can do all of those things.

But sexual harassment in the end comes down to the power a woman has in the workplace, and her ability to say no to her harasser.

And I, I feel like the person who really said it best was actually Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she did an event with us a couple of years ago, where she was a server, we actually have had so many different Congress members act as servers for an hour.

Even Senator Schumer did it recently with us in New York.

So she did it, she went to a... She returned to a bar in New York and acted as a server for an hour.

And said at the end of her service, that, you know, when you live in a state with a sub minimum wage, maybe at the beginning of the month, to the 15th of the month, if a guy tries to grab you, or say something to you or do something inappropriate, you can say buzz off, go away.

But from the 15th of the month to the 29th, or 30th of the month, you're gonna let that guy do whatever he's gonna do to you because you know his tips are the way you're gonna pay your bills come the first of the next month.

And that's what it comes down to, is the power a woman has to say no to reject it, to walk away from the tip.

And if she gets a full wage from her boss, and she can count on that wage, she isn't as reliant on the tip.

And as we talked about, that just, that became really an issue of life or death during the pandemic, when women were asked to do so much more.

Um, and men were...

I mean, now you're seeing women and men getting punched in the face and shot around the country for trying to enforce COVID protocols.

And, and we've just got to get to a place where we at least pay these workers.

If we're gonna ask them to do all that, at least pay them to the place where they're not relying on tips from those same customers that they have to... BLACK: I think that's what's so interesting about this is that, you know, there are certain policies, there're so many policies and so many bills.

And this is how I'm gonna wrap this up.

You know, where, you know, they fix one thing, but then there're some that are in a nexus of so many different things.

And wouldn't it be great, you know, you think you're dealing with wages, but you're really dealing I think what you're saying is you're really dealing with power and sexual harassment.

And you know um, you know, all kinds of things through this one thing that would, would change so many different things that have these ripple effects.

And that's one of the reasons it's so powerful.

Um, Saru we thank you for being here and for all of your hard work.

Um, and Dia, thank you so much for joining us.

Um, and thank you for your work in D.C. my hometown.

I'm gonna hand it back over to Politics and Prose.

HOLLAND: Thank you, Jane.

Thank you, Saru.

Thank you, Dia for being here with us this evening.

Certainly one of the most engaging and one of my personal favorite events we've hosted, um, in some time.

It's such a great conversation.

For more answers and more discussion, I'm gonna have to point our audience to this great book, One Fair Wage.

From our shelves to yours at Politics and Prose, we hope everyone out there is staying safe, staying strong and of course staying well read.

Thank you all so much again.

NARRATOR: Books by tonight's authors are available at Politics and Prose book store locations or online at politics-prose.com.

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