By David Weese
Staff writer
Chicago has the second largest restaurant industry in the nation, but a recent study released by Chicagoland Restaurant Industry Coalition has exposed a seamy side to the industry that most people are not aware of.
According to the comprehensive study titled “Behind the Kitchen Door,” which was compiled by DePaul professor Ted Smukler and LaMysha Adams of the Restaurant Opportunities Center, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the median hourly wage for restaurant workers is only $8.86, compared to a median wage of $17.28 for all other workers in Chicago.
The survey of restaurant workers showed that 90.5 percent reported that their employers did not offer health insurance of any kind. Earnings for restaurant workers also lag far behind earnings in the private sector. The study said that in 2008, restaurant workers were paid an average of only $17,844 a year in salary and benefits, compared to $55,409 for the rest of the private sector.
Most workers also reported overtime and minimum wage violations. Overtime violations were reported by 32.6 percent of workers and 28.5 percent reported working “off the clock” without being paid.
Chicago has an estimated 9,000 food service and drinking establishments. Restaurants employ almost 140,000 workers in Cook County alone and almost 250,000 workers in Chicagoland, and create 6.8 percent of the region’s total employment.
Annemarie Strassel, who is spokesperson for Unite HERE Local 1 said, “I think this report lays bare one of Chicago’s best kept secrets, and that is, that Chicago is a world-class restaurant city, but the people who work in those restaurants are living in poverty. … I think this report confirms what we know to be true, which is that in addition to low wages and lack of access to adequate healthcare, food service workers in this city are doing dangerous work, and often working in very unsafe working conditions, and those are things that need to be remedied.”

High road/low road
The study said, “There are two roads to profitability in the Chicago restaurant industry—the ‘high road’ and the ‘low road’ Restaurant employers who take the high road are the source of the best jobs in the industry—those that provide living wages, access to health benefits, and advancement in the industry.
“Taking the low road to profitability, on the other hand, creates low-wage jobs with long hours, few benefits and exposure to dangerous and often-unlawful workplace conditions. Many restaurant employers in the Chicago area appear to be taking the low road, creating a predominantly low-wage industry in which violations of employment and health and safety laws are commonplace. …While there are a few “good” restaurant jobs in the restaurant industry, and opportunities to earn a living wage, the majority are “bad jobs,” characterized by very low wages, few benefits, and limited opportunities for upward mobility or increased income.”
Veronica Avila, who is Coordinator of Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago said they consider employers who “aren’t really investing in their workforce” as a big part of the problem. She said that employers who do not follow the law or do not follow health and safety practices are following “the low road to profitability,” and those practices have a social costfor which the rest of us wind up paying.
Avila said that those employers who choose to offer their employees health insurance and sick days and try to keep up on health and safety regulations are “really investing in their own business,” she said.
The situation gets worse when it comes to workers of color. Workers of color, particularly undocumented workers, often find themselves in the “bad jobs,” while a disproportionate amount of whites hold the “good jobs.”
The study went on to say, “Workers of color also reported discriminatory hiring, promotion and disciplinary practices: 21.8 percent of all workers reported being passed over for a promotion, or receiving less pay than another in the same position and 42.8% of those workers felt that the unequal treatment was based on race.”
“One thing that we found, …especially here in Chicago, was that workers of color are overwhelmingly concentrated in the lowest paying jobs in the food service industry.” Avila said median wage for white workers was $14.56, and media wage for workers of color was $10. That really goes to show that white people are concentrated in the best jobs, while people of color often have structural barriers that prevent them from breaking in to these positions. Sometimes the barriers are due to language, she said, but most often people of color are simply not offered the training that would allow them to advance.
Avila pointed out that there are two tiers in a restaurant, the “front of the house” and the “back of the house.” Workers in the “front” are the ones who interact with customers, such as waiters, chefs and bartenders. She explained that it is really quite difficult for a worker to move from the “back” to the “front,” as very few restaurants offer in-house training that would allow such a move, so the workers in the “back” wind up being disproportionally people of color.
“There’s essentially no career ladder within the restaurant industry,” Avila said. “I mean, if I’m a dishwasher, I don’t really see the path to becoming a general manager or a server or a bartender. It’s just something that’s become the norm.”

Undocumented workers
Avila said that what is needed to solve the problem of undocumented workers is the introduction of some sort of national immigration reform legislation that would allow foreign workers to come here and work the menial jobs that most Americans simply don’t want.
But whether or not a worker is undocumented or not should not affect his or her rights as a worker, Avila said. “In the U.S., all workers have the same rights, so whether or not you have papers or not, you are still entitled to $4.80 an hour if you’re a tip worker, and $8 an hour if you’re not. But how do we get people to exercise their rights and how do we get employers to follow the law? She said the fact that a worker is undocumented is not an excuse for employers to break the law and exploit these workers. “An undocumented person is an employee just like everybody else.”
But Avila said it’s not just undocumented workers who are being exploited. “I can’t tell you the number of people of color who come into our office who are born right here in the city, but are still going through the same thing.” She said that many workers report that they are often forced to work long hours for less than minimum wage just to support their families and there really isn’t a way out for them.
“People need to be treated with equality regardless of their legal status, country of national origin or the language that they speak,” Strassel said. “This is a country that is built on values where if you work hard, you should be able to support your family. Unfortunately, I think there is a deep hypocrisy in this industry when it comes to dealing with this workforce.”

Social costs
The study pointed out the many “hidden costs” to customers and taxpayers of “low-wage jobs and low road workplace practices. Violations of employment and health and safety laws place customers at risk and endanger the public. For example, restaurant employers who violate labor laws are also more likely to violate health and safety standards in the workplace, such as failing to provide health and safety training, or forcing workers to cut corners that harm the health and safety of customers.”
Another hidden cost to the public is that when employers do not offer health insurance to their employees, those employees do not have a regular provider of medical services, and as a result, are much more likely to show up at emergency rooms when they need basic medical treatment. And because they are paid such low wages, they often cannot afford to pay for their treatment, which means the cost for their care is transferred to the public. For example, 15.8 percent of surveyed workers reported that they or a family member had visited the emergency room without being able to pay for their treatment.”
“Who do you think pays for that?” Avila said. “It’s the taxpayer who pays because the employer isn’t doing the right thing.”
And statistics show that restaurant workers are actually injured on the job more that construction workers are.
The survey also said that 96.2 percent of all workers surveyed reported not having access to paid sick days, and 75.9 percent reported working while sick, which creates a health risk for customers and co-workers.
“Finally, low wages and lack of job security among restaurant workers leads to increased reliance on social assistance programs, which results in indirect subsidies to employers who are engaging in low-road practices,” the study said. “A key finding of our research is that whenever restaurant workers and high-road employers are hurt by low road practices, so is the rest of society.
“We have workers who have full-time jobs but are on public benefits because they are not getting paid [minimum wage] or their rights are being violated,” Avila said. That isn’t the fault of the worker. That’s the fault of the owner who isn’t paying his workers enough.”

The union’s role
Strassel says her organization represents many restaurant workers, but they are usually in much more institutional type settings. For example, Local 1 represents about 3,500 Chicago Public School cafeteria workers, food service workers at O’Hare Airport, Navy Pier and McCormick Place and many larger corporate cafeterias.
Strassel said that unionizing smaller restaurants is often more difficult, as they simply don’t have the sheer numbers of workers that larger institutions have, which allows them to put pressure on employers. She said that it’s very difficult for workers to organize when “employers refuse to remain neutral” about workers attempts to organize. She said that especially in smaller institutions, where there is much more of a chance for employers to retaliate against workers who try to unionize. She said this is particularly true when employers are operating outside of the framework of the law to begin with.
“We’re dealing with decades of anti-labor policy that we’re working against, and there are a lot of different barriers we face [in organizing food service establishments]. And of course, corporations have become much wealthier and much stronger, so workers are really facing significant challenges when they want to consider unionization,” Strassel said.
Strassel said her organization sees the food service industry as “the next frontier in unionization.” She said that decades ago, manufacturing jobs used to be low-wage, dangerous jobs where immigrants were often exploited, but decades of effort on the part of unions have turned that around to where manufacturing jobs are now considered good jobs on pepople people can support their families. But she said that the union is also under no illusion when it comes to understanding the current economic and political situation, and realizes that “we have a long way to go” to achieving better working conditions for food service workers.
Strassel said that people need to start seeing how these workers contribute to the economy, and how they contribute to the reputation that Chicago has as a fine-dining mecca. “These are very difficult and dangerous jobs that the city of Chicago depends on,” she said. She said employers often use economy as an excuse to cut down on workers, which makes the job even more stressful.

Conclusions
It is possible to create good jobs while maintaining a successful business in the restaurant industry,” the study concluded. “Our interviews with employers revealed that as long as there is an enduring commitment to do so, it is possible to run a successful restaurant business while paying living wages, providing benefits, ensuring adequate levels of staffing, providing necessary training, and creating career advancement opportunities.”
“I think that when we’re thinking about what is going on with jobs, …we have to be thinking long-term about what’s in the best interest for business and for the city of Chicago,” Strassel said. Her union is working towards providing jobs that will allow people to support their families, own their own homes and have adequate access to health care. But she says that when people don’t have jobs that allow them to contribute back to the local economy because they aren’t being paid a decent wage, everybody suffers.
Avila said that her group considers the study “just the beginning. It’s the first comprehensive research that’s been done on the restaurant industry here in Chicago. We are really looking for the opportunity to build partnerships.”
Her group is launching what they call “The High Road Round Table,” which is a coalition of various members of the restaurant industry, including workers. The goal of the round table is to create a policy agenda that will create incentives for restaurant owners to take the “high road” in their business practices.
“It’s not the cheapest thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do, so the goal of the round table is: How do we make it easier. We know that money doesn’t grow on trees, so we believe that taking the ‘high road’ should be rewarded, whether it be through tax breaks or whatever,” Avila said.
Another goal of the round table will be to come up with a restaurant owners guide that will clearly outline the laws that owners need to follow, but will also contain a comprehensive list of recommendations of “best practices” in the restaurant industry.
The ROC is also supporting the “Healthy Workplace Act” bill that is now on its way through the Legislature that would require employers to offer 7 paid sick days a year that would be given on an accrual basis.
For more information or to join the “High Road Round Table” call (312) 629-2892 or go to the ROC website at http://www.rocunited.org For a copy of the study, click on the “What-we-know” link at the top of the page.