Opinion: Rebuilding our economy depends on protecting women

The cost of the coronavirus pandemic to the restaurant industry and to food service workers has been immeasurable.

Since the onset, millions of restaurant workers and businesses have borne the brunt of the economic and public health crisis, and the industry has been slow to recover despite New York City reopening and promising COVID-19 vaccine efforts.

Many have falsely linked the slow regrowth to a shortage of people willing to return to work. But when many restaurant servers in New York make a sub-minimum wage of only $2.13, relying heavily on tips for the bulk of their paycheck — it’s not a staff shortage, it’s a wage shortage.

And the solution may go beyond simply raising wages in the short term to attract new employees. In recent months, despite some employers temporarily increasing wages to meet the minimum wage, recent job reports show minimal job growth in the industry. Workers are looking for guaranteed high wages and stability in their workplace.

This forces us to reckon with other factors of the industry that are deterring people from returning and investing in a holistic and long-term approach to permanently increase wages and meet all the needs of restaurant workers.

It would be a mistake to diagnose the struggling recovery of the restaurant industry — a field once dominated by women and women of color — without acknowledging the millions of women who have left the labor force nationwide. Roughly 300,000 women have left the work force just in the last month, and women are returning to work at far slower rates than men.

This disparity among men and women is prevalent within the restaurant industry, and many women link the disparity not only to low wages and long hours, but to the unsafe working conditions women endured long before the pandemic.

An unfortunate and often-overlooked reality of working in the restaurant industry is the prevalence of sexual harassment against women workers. For years, the restaurant industry has experienced the highest rates of sexual harassment and mistreatment against women than in any other industry.

Women service workers are regularly patronized and sexualized by customers, and their paychecks often depend on a level of unwanted sexualization and performance unseen by other wage workers.

The pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry is fueled by sub-minimum wages and the reliance on tips. For tipped servers, weekly incomes are tied to fluctuating schedules and the “generosity” of customers served.

They rely heavily on the un-guaranteed gratuity to meet the minimum wage promised to all other workers in the state.

This power dynamic between tipped workers and their customers fosters a toxic work environment with the ultimate inhumane choice: subjection and acceptance of harassment, or a smaller paycheck.

The pandemic only exacerbated harassment in the restaurant industry. Sexual harassment from customers was magnified by workers enforcing COVID-19 safety protocols. More than 40 percent of women food service workers in New York noticed an increase in harassment from customers during the pandemic, while 82 percent noticed tip amounts plummet.

Hundreds of women servers were asked by customers to remove their masks in order to see their face and tip “appropriately.” Some workers experienced more vulgar and threatening comments such as “take off your mask so I can stick my tongue down your throat.”

In the face of these worsening conditions, it is not surprising that 38 percent of servers in New York restaurants are considering not returning to work.

To weaken this harmful power dynamic between tipped service workers and customers, we have to finally eliminate the sub-minimum wage for restaurant workers and enact a “One Fair Wage” across New York state. Seven states — Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — already require restaurants to pay their employees a full minimum wage plus tips, and ensure their servers take home a fair wage independent of their customers’ gratuity.

As a result, tipped workers in these states experience substantially lower levels of sexual harassment and misconduct at work.

To be clear, eliminating the sub-minimum wage for restaurant workers will not instantly eradicate all sexual misconduct in an industry that has been plagued by it for decades. But workers’ income and livelihoods will not be held hostage by customers who engage in harassment.

Eliminating the sub-minimum wage can empower restaurant workers to reject harmful and demeaning sexual harassment and demand that customers treat them with dignity.

And in a moment when the restaurant industry is desperately trying to recover and overcome staff shortages, addressing harassment in the industry could not be more important. Monthly job reports continue to remind us that our economic recovery is impossible without women returning to the work force.

As we rebuild from the pandemic, we have a responsibility to ensure women-dominated industries — like the restaurant industry — offer women good, high-paying jobs in safe work environments that value their humanity and encourage them to thrive.

To do that, we have to start with enacting a One Fair Wage.

The author is the state senator representing the 34th district, which includes Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, and parts of Kingsbridge