‘Reshape our culture’: Asheville service workers organize to improve conditions by David Forbes July 10, 2014

Concerned about low pay, a lack of benefits and many other problems, a group of local service workers are organizing

Above: Image for Asheville Sustainable Restaurant Workforce, used with permission of Jessi Steelman.

There are over 20,000 food service workers in the Asheville area, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their median pay, as of last year, sat at around $9.07 an hour, well below the recommended living wage for the area.

A new group of service workers — Asheville Sustainable Restaurant Workforce — wants to change that, and that’s not the only issue in their sights.

“Restaurant workers are some of the most underpaid and exploited workers in America,” a statement on the group’s Facebook pages reads. “Many full service restaurant workers live at or below the poverty line, specifically one in three in North Carolina. They are victims of wage theft- ranging from front of the house misappropriation of earned gratuities to unpaid overtime in the back of the house. Restaurant industry jobs usually come with few benefits that workers in other industries take for granted. Health coverage is rarely offered; paid sick leave, vacation time, paid maternity leave, and 401(k)s are unheard of.” As if all this wasn’t enough, the statement asserts, they have “little voice concerning their work environment.”

To solve this, the group looks to try for “a fresh approach to defending workers’ rights and building alliances in the community,” both through supporting policies to benefit service workers and responding “with direct action to those who do not support our values.”

Alia Todd, one of the group’s co-founders, has worked in the local service industry for 11 years. She had initially contacted Just Economics, a local non-profit that deals with living wage issues, “to figure out which restaurants were and weren’t complying” with paying a living wage.

Todd and another service worker ended up taking an eight-week community organizing course offered by Just Economics. The non-profit’s staff have, in recent years, provided organizing assistance to a number of including transit riders and public housing residents.

From there, Todd says, she started meeting with other concerned restaurant workers, “back of the house as well as front” and “talking about what can be done.”

They shared many of the same concerns, as well as problems with a lack of job security, rapidly shifting schedules making childcare difficult, and that “just missing a few days can put them in the poorhouse.”

Right now, the group has a “loose board,” as Todd puts it, of six people. Next week, it’s holding its first event, a cookout at 3 p.m. July 14 in Carrier Park. ASRW’s Facebook group has 428 members.

“The problems are acute in Asheville, but that’s the case in any state where there are these sub-minimum wage conditions,” Todd says, noting that some statewide organizations are working on the issue by, for example, pushing for paid sick leave. “But the cost of living is particularly high in Asheville, though it’s high in some other places too.”

In addition, she said, the complicated equation used to incorporate tips and calculate restaurant workers’ pay make wage theft rampant throughout the local industry, sometimes even unintentionally.

While the group’s forming goals are still forming raising awareness, Todd says, is one of the first priorities.

“Many restaurant workers just aren’t aware, and people who go out to restaurants also need to be aware,” she says. The complicated calculation for tipped employees’ wages is one example.

“A lot of the wage theft isn’t even intentional; that’s a place where we can raise awareness,” she says. “Restaurant workers can be difficult to organize. That’s one thing we seek to clear up; to give people a place to get information about their wages.”

The group’s also conducting an anonymous online survey of local workers’ concerns. So far, Todd says, it’s holding off on extensive conversations with other organizations and restaurant owners, though she says they’re interested in doing so at a later stage.

As for now, she hopes “all restaurant workers past and present, as well as diners and owners, will join us and see how we can get a more equitable work environment for people.”

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