On Saturday I had the chance to have a conversation with Daniel Scordato, the owner of Vivace, an upscale north-side establishment, about employee-employer relations. One of the things he brought up was what an employer can do to not exploit an employee. He specifically spoke about cleaning and maintenance of a restaurant. A mandatory deep-cleaning day for servers and bartenders to come in on their day-off is, in his opinion, cutting the wrong corners. Instead of hiring cleaners, Vintabla had a mandatory cleaning day of the employees on Sunday, October 19th. The hourly wage of a server or bartender in Tucson ranges approx. between $3.00-$7.00/hr. Cleaners, in general, get paid ALOT more. No amount of penne pasta or a beer here and there makes up for requiring servers and bartenders to be on their hands and knees scrubbing floors. We are not paid salaries. We are not professional cleaners.
Looking at the bigger picture, yes, there is a problem with next to nothing wages that tip-based employees receive in the state of Arizona. In the state of California, employers are required by law to pay their employees the state minimum wage of $8.00/hr with few exceptions. Having worked in both states and in the service industry since the late 1990s, I've been most impressed by the business practices of In-N-Out burger (check it out: www.in-n-out.com/employment), a company that strives to take care of their employees.
It is sad when companies of any kind decide to engage in wrongful, albeit not illegal, treatment of employees. Now more than ever we should question our rights in this country and what changes we want.
2 comments:
It's called pride. Do you clean your own house for money or for you? Stop bitching about your so called respect and love for this place, when you cry about what makes a business work. PEOPLE WHO HAVE FUCKING PRIDE. Stop wasting your time posting flyers, writing sob stories and go get a job. Shit, homeless people can get jobs. The amount of money you wasted printing flyers could have bought you coffee. And I'm still crying that you had to cut your budget in half when 80% of the world can't afford a place to live, feed their families or wash their clothes. Get your head out of your charmed, selfish, I-should-have-a-job, whiny ass. You earn life, so go fucking work for it.
udonoodles... Your anger must exhaust you.
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