Tipped workers also deserve ‘full, fair minimum wage’
As an Illinois restaurant worker, I couldn’t be more excited that our state is considering phasing out the subminimum wage and moving to a full, fair minimum wage for all with tips on top.
When we talk about the cost of living as a top political issue, this is exactly the kind of change we need that puts more money in working people’s pockets — and makes our economy more fair and just for all.
Restaurant workers deserve the dignity of a livable wage. We should not have to depend solely on tips to make ends meet. Being able to pay my rent should depend on how hard I work, not on whether the people assigned to my section that day happen to be feeling extra generous.
Even if it’s a rainy day with a slow lunch, I should still be able to make ends meet.
In any other industry, that would be the norm. But restaurants carved out a special exception for themselves in minimum wage laws, a holdover from the era of slavery when white restaurant owners didn’t want to pay newly freed Black workers. With that history, it’s no surprise that there is still racial discrimination in tipping — which leads to workers of color taking home less pay for the same hard work.
That’s not the only discrimination the subminimum wage encourages.
Research shows that women working in restaurants experience the worst sexual harassment of any industry in America, and rates of sexual harassment are twice as bad in states with a subminimum wage. In my time as a restaurant worker, I’ve faced near-constant harassment — from degrading comments to unwanted touching to stalking.
It’s hard to respond to this behavior no matter what, but it’s especially difficult when we’re supposed to rely on customers’ tips to make up the majority of our wages. The customers are supposed to always be right, but what happens when their behavior is very, very wrong? This puts women servers in an awful position.
And it’s particularly awful considering that the majority of restaurant workers are women of color, and disproportionately women of color and single mothers.
Meanwhile, wage theft throughout the restaurant industry is rampant, made easier because of this two-tiered wage system. I for one am routinely asked to do job responsibilities beyond serving — from running errands to event planning — for which I am not compensated and am just supposed to hope that the eventual tips make up for it.
Unfortunately, they rarely do.
Restaurants and bars are central to American life — and certainly central to our culture and economy in Illinois. And yet the fundamental injustice of the subminimum wage has unfortunately been central to the unjust treatment of Illinois restaurant workers for far too long.
I urge our leaders in Springfield to join Chicago as well as Michigan, Minnesota and six other states and the District of Columbia to end the subminimum wage and ensure a full, fair minimum wage plus tips on top for all. Experience from those other places shows that levels of tipping stay the same or increase, wages go up and restaurant industry growth stays the same or increases.
But One Fair Wage isn’t just the right policy to help me as a restaurant worker – it’s the right policy to help me as a voter believe that our political leaders care about working people like me and are fighting to give us a living wage.
• Anneliese Jackson is a tipped restaurant worker in Elgin.