“When you go out to eat, you shouldn’t get wage theft, racism and sick cooks in the kitchen, along with your meal. How the food tastes at a restaurant really doesn’t matter, if the people who work there are being mistreated.” – Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA

(MintPress) – Last October, cocktail waitress Victoria Liss arguably experienced all the downfalls of being a waitress by simply looking at one scribbled-on receipt. A table she was waiting on at Seattle’s Bimbo’s Cantina left her with a little less, but also a little more than she bargained for. After seeing an emphatic “0” next to the tip line, she found a message written just for her at the bottom of the receipt.

“P.S. You could stand to loose [sic] a few pounds,” a message scrawled in pen opined.

Liss encountered what many in the restaurant industry experience: Little money and lousy treatment, oftentimes simultaneously.

Being a server in today’s American restaurant industry means leaving entitlement at the door and working through a system of financial uncertainty, alleged wage theft tactics by restaurants and occasional emotional turmoil. Some cry foul at a federal minimum wage law that can see some servers in the United States make as little as $2.13 an hour for base pay – a rate that hasn’t changed in 21 years. Others pine for paid sick leave, as two-thirds of restaurant workers surveyed by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC) reported working with food while sick.

The faces of America’s restaurants are struggling, despite the industry being one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the American economy, employing more than 10 million workers. But the workers are acquiring a voice in activist organizations and proposed legislation that aims to reduce the impacts of their hardships.

The ‘gamble’

Lisa Jean can’t fathom a $2.13 base salary. A waitress in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Jean’s minimum wage is more than four times higher than the U.S. limit set by the Fair Labor Standards Act. And that is a common theme throughout Canada’s provinces: Minimum wage for those serving liquor in British Columbia is $9 per hour, while a non-tipped minimum wage worker makes $10.25 an hour. Other provinces set minimum wages for tipped workers anywhere from $8.55 to $9.05 an hour.

In the U.S., an employer can pay a tipped employee as little as $2.13 per hour if that amount plus the tips received by the employee equals at least the federal minimum wage, currently set at $7.25. Twenty-nine states have adopted their own minimum wage standards for tipped workers, ranging anywhere from $2.23 in Delaware to $7 in Hawaii. When asked if she would willingly work for $2.13 an hour, Jean replied, “absolutely not.” While the hourly wage doesn’t draw most servers to the industry, Jean said a fair direct wage is essential.

“We rely on tips. The wage itself doesn’t pay bills and is, in itself, less than national minimum wage,” Jean explained. “We do it on the gamble that the tips will compensate for the federally admissible decrease in minimum wage. This varies province to province, but not by much. It reflects the relative cost of living.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates the median annual wage for a full-time server in the U.S. at $18,570, with the lower 10 percentile earning $16,070. The wage scale leaves half of all restaurant workers earning less than the national poverty line, according to ROC, an organization dedicated to improving wages and working conditions for the restaurant workforce.

And the undesirable economic situations are affecting women far more than their male counterparts, as the serving industry is female dominated, ROC communications coordinator Meghana Reddy points out.

“Restaurant servers – of whom 71 percent are female – are almost three times more likely to be paid below the poverty line than the general workforce and nearly twice as likely to need food stamps as the general population,” Reddy said.

Submitting to a system

ROC recently released its 2012 Diners’ Guide, which explored the working conditions of America’s largest restaurants. The group chastised the restaurant industry for low wages, a lack of paid sick leave and occupational segregation. Its survey found a $4 wage gap between white workers and workers of color while 73 percent of its respondents said they had never received a promotion.

“Women, immigrants and people of color hold lower-paying positions in the industry, and do not have many opportunities to move up the ladder,” ROC said in its report.

Servers are also at the mercy of a system that regularly practices wage sharing, cut shifts and being subjected to working in areas that are not favorable for a server to make a sufficient amount of tips. For Kelly Suter, those variables determined whether she would end her shift with anywhere from $10 to $250 in her pocketbook.

As a waitress in college at two family-owned establishments, Suter, now a 23-year-old publicist in Minneapolis, recalls a competitive element that went into how much each waitress would leave with on a given night. She said it was “blatant” that managers would consider age and looks when determining what section to place a waitress in. Other waitresses say favoritism plays a role in landing a lucrative evening’s work.

“You could walk in and make the minimum wage because you were ‘expoing’ just because they decided it or you were just lucky because you had, you know, a motorcycle crew come in and that was your one section,” Suter explained. “If someone did have a background or personality that seemed like they would want to party, they wouldn’t assign you to a dance floor because you wouldn’t be able to have fun or to joke or flirt, or do whatever you need to do.”

In food service, the expeditor, or “expo” as it is commonly referred to as, is a position that acts as a liaison between the kitchen at the wait staff by communicating orders and sometimes bringing food to tables. Suter also said particular shifts can mean the difference between needing a second job or being able to pay the bills.

“No one likes working specials or happy hour because customers don’t consider what they’re saving and not tipping you for doing the same amount of work,” Suter acknowledged. “Lunch is the worst because it’s busy and it’s cheap.”

At both of Suter’s jobs, she made the minimum wage for a tipped worker, so every dollar was important. But just as every dollar made was crucial, every dollar lost was disheartening. Suter recalls one former employer who made the wait staff pay for any meal that was made via a wrong order or if it was not made correctly. The restaurant also punished the wait staff if a customer walked out on a bill without paying.

“If a dish was messed up and it was your fault, they made you pay for the whole meal, even if it wasn’t clear if the kitchen heard you right or heard you wrong,” Suter said. “And if people walk out on a $100 bill, it comes out of your tips.”

One of the most common, and questioned, practices in restaurants is requiring servers to share their tips with other employees, most commonly bartenders and busboys. Suter said she would usually have to split 30 percent of her tips between busboys and bartenders. Jean said that poor tippers, or those who left no tip out of displeasure with the restauraunt, ultimately hurt the server more than anyone.

“If you feel that you’ve had bad service, your food was cold, it came out late, the wine was off … and you don’t leave a tip, we still have to ‘tip-out’ on your sale,” Jean explained. “If you have a $100 tab and leave me nothing, it effectively costs me $5-$8 to serve you because I have to tip-out regardless. Most people don’t know that. If your food is bad and you don’t tip me I still have to give the kitchen money for that bad food.”

But what is seen as an inconvenient practice by some is looked at as an illegal practice by others. ROC is currently helping support a group of servers with a lawsuit against Darden Restaurants, the world’s largest full-service restaurant company, against allegations of wage theft. Darden owns large chains such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille. Reddy said that ROC sees three wage theft tactics used by these restaurants: Workers being clocked out early or clocked in late, tipped workers doing non-tipped work such as cleaning or janitorial work and servers tipping out and sharing tips with non-tipped workers.

Proposed relief

Despite a lineage of financial obstacles, at least one U.S. representative is taking note. In 2011, Maryland Democrat congresswoman Donna Edwards proposed the first piece of legislation ever that targets tipped workers. Dubbed the WAGES Act, it looks to close the wage gap between tipped and non-tipped workers.

The bill would slowly introduce new wage requirements to restaurants so they could gradually acclimate to the new expense. The way it’s written now, the first 90 days after the bill’s passage would require restaurants to increase their minimum wage for servers from $2.13 to $3.75 per hour. After one year of enactment, the rate would go up to $5.00 per hour and, after two years, $5.50 per hour. The bill has yet to be voted on by a committee.

Reddy championed the bill by saying minimum wage in America needs reform across the board, particularly for servers.

“It’s an incredibly important bill. It’s important for all workers to have a higher minimum wage, but it’s most important for those in the restaurant industry because those are some of the lowest-paying jobs,” Reddy said.

But some restaurant owners are already balking at the legislation. Restaurants in states that have increased the minimum wage have resorted to increasing menu prices or contemplating cutting employees. Advocates for the pay increases in states such as Washington, Florida and Arizona say it’s essential to help with a rising cost of living.

“These very modest increases are not job killers,” Paul Sonn, the National Employment Law Project’s legal co-director said. “They’re not even real increases, these are really cost of living adjustments.”

Too sick for work, too sick at work

In some restaurants, the only local ingredients diners are getting are the ones being coughed on to their food by a waitress that can’t afford to call in sick. With 90 percent of restaurant workers not allotted paid sick leave, many under financial constraints have no choice but to show up at work to make ends meet, even if it’s against their better judgement.

Katie Van Syckle worked as a waitress for nearly a decade before comfortably making a living as a freelance journalist. At 29, she has served in some of America’s most prominent restaurant cities, such as New Orleans and New York. She admitted to going to work even though she was less than 100 percent, and she knew of co-workers who were working through a shift, despite appearing visibly ill.

“I definitely know a lot of people that would come into work knowing they shouldn’t be there,” Van Syckle said. “It’s gross – these are people who are actually working with your food, and they’re sick. It’s a public health issue.”

Suter said the restaurants she worked at would try to conceal its sick workers behind the scenes and away from table interactions. But by doing that, they were often put in the kitchen near the food.

“They would put you back in the kitchen working expo because they didn’t want you coughing around the customers, but you were back there dealing with all the food.”

The reason? Servers relying on tips often cannot afford to miss a day of work. Two-thirds of restaurant workers surveyed by ROC reported cooking, preparing and serving food while sick. But a bill currently outstanding in Congress could allow workers to accumulate paid sick days. The Healthy Families Act died in 2009 before being reintroduced in 2011; it has yet to be discussed in committee, but is being heavily supported by ROC.

The bill would require businesses with 15 or more employees to allow workers to earn up to seven paid sick days per year. Workers would compile a minimum of one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked.

“No one should face the impossible choice of caring for their health or keeping their paycheck or job,” ROC said. “At a time when families’ finances are stretched thin and losing a job can mean months of unemployment, working families need a paid sick days standard.”

The psychology of serving

Despite being the largest obstacle for most servers, money certainly isn’t the only obstacle. Serving can be a “degrading” profession where workers often feel “disregarded,” according to various servers interviewed. The proof is there to back it up, as well: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reports a 10.3 percent depression rate each year within the restaurant industry, the next-highest rate after personal care and service workers.

“Historically, service is a very lower, to lower-middle class activity. Slowly it evolved, and maybe it’s becoming more democratized,” Van Syckle speculated. “But what hasn’t really evolved is the thinking that this person (servant) is beneath you and that somehow you’re better than them because you’re sitting and they’re standing.”

Van Syckle dealt with her fair share of criticism from customers. She attended college at Dartmouth before graduating from Columbia University. But in between graduation and finding a job in her field, she waitressed. She said many of the customers she waited on would inquire about her and her employment situation.

“I would walk up to a table and they would say, ‘Well, what else do you do? You’re not just a waitress, are you?’ If I was just a waitress, wouldn’t that be okay?” Van Syckle said. “It just makes sense that when you put someone in a position of power and someone else in a position of taking orders, eventually you adopt a sense of weakness.”

Van Syckle acknowledged the very real potential of self-esteem issues among servers. She said that in the restaurant industry, chefs are widely considered artists, while servers are often considered “second class.”

“People don’t realize there’s this ambassador that’s in charge of making sure you enjoy your meal, and they’re the face of the operation, for better or worse,” she said. “They’re the face of the operation and they really don’t get any credit for what they’re doing for you. It’s all given to chefs, and obviously the kitchen is lifting a heavy weight back there.”

The act of being repeatedly told what to do was something Suter admitted to bothering her at times.

“Ten percent of people will maybe ask how you are or something about you, but otherwise you’re just standing there taking orders,” Suter said. “People literally give orders, or they’re rude or they’re drunk and they say the most outrageous things.”

Servers say it takes thick skin to to be good at the job, but also a certain adornment for food and drinks. Often those waiting on tables are passionate about food, the mixology of drinks or social aspect of interacting with customers on a daily basis.

For Jean, at 34, a passion for hospitality remains. She continues to work as a cocktail waitress while working on a degree. She said she would not have chosen waitressing as a job for more than 15 years if she did not like an aspect of it.

“Most of us love food and drinks and the hospitality business. We like this job: It’s social, it’s fun and we’re passionate about food whether it be vegetarian, ocean sustainability in fishing, wines for a sommelier, we love it. So you shake the dice with the pay,” Jean said.