A Day of Reckoning

COVID-19 has been touted as a “once in a century” pandemic and it completely flipped the world on its head for almost all of 2020 and, at the time of this writing, almost half of 2021. Many industries, particularly those with “white collar” jobs, were able to easily adapt thanks to the ability to work from home.

Dinner rushes are no joke

Unfortunately for many, working remotely was not an opportunity that could be afforded to them. I think it’s safe to say that no sector of the American economy was hit harder than the service industry, particularly restaurants and bars. Stay-at-home orders began to spread across the country and initial “lockdown orders” restricted dining establishments to operate as take out and delivery only.

For many, removing the “sit-down” aspect of a sit-down restaurant basically turns many places into a significantly slower and vastly more expensive fast food joint. Unsurprisingly, business tanked and most restaurants were forced to layoff most if not all of their employees in order to not go out of business.

The unemployment rate in the United States skyrocketed, at one point reaching nearly 15% in April, 2020. For context that means that almost 1 out of every 7 Americans was out of a job. With no way to make money, people were at risk of not being able to pay their bills and losing the roof over their heads.

To stave off a full blown economic collapse the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Great Depression, the government passed a wide range “rescue” packages to ease the pain of the people. Stimulus checks were sent out to help pay bills, a moratorium on evictions was placed to keep people from ending up on the streets in the middle of a pandemic, and possibly most importantly, those on unemployment insurance (UI) would receive an additional $600 per week on top of whatever they would have received normally. That extra $600 per week was unprecedented in both its scope as well as its ability to open the eyes of the working class in this country.

The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 means that someone working a full, 40-hour work week, is only making $290 a week before taxes. Although states are allowed to set their own minimum wage as long as it’s higher than the federal rate, 20 states still continue to pay their workers the lowest they are legally allowed to.

Those increased unemployment benefits meant that people in certain parts of the country were now making two or almost three times as much as they were working their normal job(s). Not only were they making ends meet, but many saw their quality of life actually improve.

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Now that the pandemic is winding down and life is starting to get back to normal, restaurants are starting to open back up for indoor dining meaning that the cooks, servers, bartenders, and everyone else that was laid-off or “furloughed” at the start of the pandemic can now come back to their jobs!

——Record scratch——

Just one small problem: the employees don’t want to come back.

The restaurant industry is a fast paced, high stress environment where employees are more often than not, overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.

A few of those with asperations of becoming chefs and running their own kitchen don’t get into this with dreams of getting rich, they do it because of their love and passion for the craft and there are plenty of restauranteurs willing to exploit that and underpay their talent. This has ripple effects down the line in the hierarchy of the restaurant. Similarly to when Tom Brady takes a pay cut, if he’s getting paid less than what he deserves, everyone else on the team is expected to do the same or take a hike. Likewise, if the chef is getting paid like shit, everyone else assumes that’s just the way it has to be.

After being laid off from their jobs, like many other underpaid workers in the country, restaurant employees saw their quality of life improve while on unemployment.

Many on the political right have bemoaned that the increased unemployment benefits have made people lazy; “Why would people go back to work when they can make more on unemployment?” they ask unironically. Unfortunately for them, this argument has backfired. The rise of social media has helped bring forth a new wave of class solidarity among those that have been paid the least by society. People began to learn their value during the pandemic.

Those that were able to keep their jobs in the service industry (like restaurants and grocery stores) were called “heroes” for helping society retain a semblance of normalcy. They temporarily found themselves being placed on a pedestal as “frontline workers” alongside respected professions like EMTs, nurses, doctors, and firefighters. They were now seen as crucial cogs in the machine that kept society going.

For the first time, a society which has grown to look down on working with your hands and blue-collar jobs began to validate those workers as important. Those workers finally mattered, and this temporarily “elevated” societal status granted to those in the service industry was expected to placate them instead of higher pay.

Those that were lucky enough to keep their jobs were soon finding that their furloughed coworkers were now making more than they were and, because of the way unemployment insurance works, they couldn’t quit or they would receive nothing. They were trapped in the system.

As the outcries to end the supplemental unemployment assistance rang louder and louder by a small but vocal group, a larger percentage of American workers were coming to the same conclusion: the fact that people could make more money while not working wasn’t a failing of the unemployment system, it was a failing of the employment system.

All those service industry workers that saw their quality of life improve on unemployment, some of whom have been out of work for almost a year, are now expected to go back to working 40+ hour weeks at a job that pays them less than when they were staying home on their ass.

In the not too distant past, the movement to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 and hour has been met by fierce opposition by those on the right, arguing that the minimum wage is meant for “teenagers” and that anyone who wants to make more than minimum wage should just go out and look for a better, more meaningful job.

The irony here of course is that the pandemic all but confirmed the importance and “meaningfulness” of service industry jobs. What’s more, those on the right were predominantly the ones clamoring for the reopening of restaurants, hair salons, and other service-oriented places of business, willing to sacrifice the health and potentially the lives of those in the industry just so they can get their cheeseburgers and pedicures.

Any person that has ever worked in a restaurant, grocery store, hair salon, or any other service job can tell you that there is a physical, mental, and emotional toll that these jobs take from you. It is now no surprise that service industry workers are refusing in masse to go back to barely making ends meet even when working full time.

A day of reckoning has come and the revolution will not be televised.