January 31, 2023 • 47 mins
The current federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 and has not increased since 2009. Meanwhile, disabled employees can legally be paid less than their non-disabled counterparts, earning as little as 25 cents per hour. Host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with Daily Show researcher Stephanie O. and the President of One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman to discuss how the subminimum wage is legal, how tipping is a legacy of slavery, why restaurant workers aren’t running back to their jobs after the pandemic, and how the “other” NRA, the National Restaurant Association is the biggest obstacle to raising the minimum wage.
Head to One Fair Wage to learn more about their work, join organized protests and continue the fight for fair wages: https://onefairwage.site/
Watch the original segment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAtjGY9vQRA&t
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the podcast that goes
deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on The
Daily Show. This is what this podcast is like, right,
this podcast, it's like a smoothie, you know, you know,
we're the with the perfect blend of healthy fruit, a
little bit of protein powder, lots of lots of greens,
or that dumbass cheese seed or that flax seeds you
(00:29):
bought at the beginning of the year because you told
yourself New Year, knew me, I'm gonna put flax seed
and everything, and you realize it's disgusted. That's what this
podcast is. A ROYD. Wood Jr. Today, we're talking about
the sub minimum wage. That's right, that's what I said,
sub minimum wave even less than venimum wage roll the clip.
(00:54):
The federal minimum wage is seven dollars and cents an hour,
but in forty three eights, employers are allowed to pay
tipped workers less, some as little as two dollars and
thirteen cents an hour, a federal wage which is not
increased in twenty five years. The rationale is that customers
tips are supposed to make up the difference between two
dollars and thirteen cents an hour and the minimum wage,
(01:17):
and if the tipped employee doesn't receive the minimum wage
through tips, employers are required to pay the difference. In
the industry, it's called topping up. In seven states, including Minnesota,
topping up is not an issue because those states require
employers to pay tipped workers the full minimum wage. Tips
are considered additional income tamp Let's talk about this a
(01:39):
little bit more. I'm joined by Daily Show Deep Dive
researchers Stephanie Oh, who was the original person who pitched
this segment. Stephanie, thank you for being underpaid for so
long that you finally got a spot on the show
to speak out against this issue. How you doing, I'm good.
How are you Roy? I'm okay, I'm okay. Also joining
(02:00):
us for this conversation it is the president of One
Fair Wage and the director of the Food Labor Research
Center at the UC Berkeley, sorru J Raman. Welcome to
the show. How you doing, su I'm so good. Thank
you so much for having me. Now, let's start from
the top. As the great Chris Rock once said in
(02:20):
his first comedy album, Born Suspect, Deep Cutshit. On this podcast,
Chris Rock said that minimum wage is your boss's way
of saying, Hey, if I could pay you less, I would,
but it's against the law. So when we talk about
sub minimum wage, first off, let's define what sub minimum wages,
(02:44):
and then let's get into who's affected the most by it. Well, sadly,
some minimum wage is the way Chris Rock that your
boss legally pays you less than the minimum wage. Um
and it is a direct legacy of slavery that has
resul halted in six million workers in the United States
legally being paid less than the minimum wage because supposedly
(03:08):
their tips bring them from that sub minimum wage to
the regular minimum wage. And actually the employer is supposed
to ensure for every hour that they work that tips
actually bring them to the full minimum wage. But data
shows that an eight four percent of cases at least
that doesn't happen. And who's the most affected by this?
(03:29):
You know, I've waited, I pretty much have done everything
you could possibly do in food service, from front of
the house to back of the house, and even as
a tip worker at some spots you were forced to
share tips with people in the back of the house
who were getting minimum wage but are there any other
groups that are affected by this sorrow. Yes, tipped workers
(03:49):
in the US are overwhelmingly women. They're over se women,
and they have been frankly since emancipation, when this whole
system was created. Did They're over two thirds women. They
are disproportioned women of color. We have the highest rates
of single mothers of any industry in the United States,
and they are the They are overwhelmingly single moms and
(04:13):
women who work at very casual restaurants, so eye hops
and Denny's, Olive Garden, red Lobster. They don't less than
five percent actually work in fine dining. They are overwhelmingly
working in very casual restaurants. They struggle with three times
the poverty rate of other workers. They use food stamps
at double the rate of other workers. UM. So they're
(04:34):
overwhelmingly young women of color. Sometimes when I say young,
I don't mean teenagers. I mean in their thirties. They
have children. The median age is actually mid thirty five,
and they are the lowest income women in America. Actually,
what about when we talk about, you know, like I
had a boss. I'll tell your brief story. I worked
(04:57):
at a food spot in Birmingham at sixt You know,
I was closing the store at two in the morning,
which is against every child laborl law ever written. That's
a separate law that's being broken. But talk a little
bit about the youth workers and incarcerated workers and how
they could also be taken advantage of it, as well
(05:17):
as members of the disabled community. So first of all, uh,
let me just say there are actually multiple sub minimum
wages in the US. There's the sub minimum wage for
tipped workers, which is the largest population of workers earning
less than the minimum wage, six million workers. There's a
sub minimum wage for workers with disabilities, as you said,
that's existed since the establishment of the Fair Labor Standards Act,
(05:40):
based completely just on the idea that people with disabilities
are less productive, um, not completely human. Basically, there's a
submitum wage in many states for youth based on the
idea that somehow young people deserve to be paid less
when they work. There's a submium wage for incarcerated workers
that is a direct a second legacy of slavery that
(06:00):
comes directly from, of course, the Thirteenth Amendment and the
ability to continue slavery in the case of incarceration. Incarceration um.
But returning to that first biggest chunk, which is six
million tipped workers in America. As I said, direct legacy
of slavery was created at emancipation in order to basically
(06:21):
allow the restaurant industry to hire black people for free,
black women in particular, not pay them anything, and have
them live entirely on a new thing that had just
come from Europe at the time called tipping. And that
notion of tipping had originated in feudal Europe and it
was always since feudal times, an extra bonus on top
of a wage. We in the US uniquely uniquely mutated
(06:45):
it into a replacement four wages, creating the submit wage
basically as a way to continue slavery at emancipation, and
that idea was made law in nineteen thirty eight when
everybody got the right to the federal minimum wage for
for the first time, but tipped workers were overwhelmingly Black
women were left out and told you get zero as
(07:05):
long as you get tips. So tipping comes from Europe.
And then Americans go, well, how about I just not
give you anything and you just keep whatever a penny
somebody throw at your ass before the end of your shift.
When when did we get to the actual minimum wage
for the first time. Actually, I do have to share
one more thing before we get to the actual minimum wage,
(07:28):
which is at emancipation, there were actually two industries that
sought to hire newly freed black people, not pay them
anything and have them live on tips. One was the
Pullman train company that hired newly freed black men uh
and as porters on trains, tried to pay them just
in tips. But as many of you know, A Philip
Randall formed the first black union in the United States,
(07:49):
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Borders, and won the right
to an actual wage rather than living on tips. Black
women were hired by the restaurant industry, and we're not
so lucky. There was no union for them, and so
they were left, as you told, with as you said,
with just tips, no wage. And that idea that black
women could be paid nothing but tips was made law
(08:12):
in nineteen thirty eight when everybody else got the right
to a federal minimum wage for the first time, but
tipped workers, who are overwhelmingly women women of color, were
left out and told you don't get anything, you just
get tips. And we went from a zero dollar wage
in night, all the way up to two dollars and
thirteen cents an hour, the current federal minimum wage for
(08:33):
tipped workers in twenty twenty three. And I was saying,
listen back to your question of like who these workers are.
Sometimes when I share this data, people say that's terrible,
but in their mind they're thinking, Oh, that's okay, because
it's just one tiny sliver of the population. The restaurant
industry is current then currently the number one fastest growing
private sector employer in the United States of America. It
(08:56):
is the largest employer of women. It is the largest
employer of young people. Of restaurant workers are under the
age of twenty four. It is the largest employer formally
incarcerated people. It is the largest employer immigrants. It's the
largest employer period. One and two Americans has worked in
the industry at some point in their lifetime. Just like
Stephanie and Roy, you both worked in the industry. Industry,
(09:18):
right half of America has worked in this industry. And
yet despite its size and its growth and the fact
that we've all worked in it, it has gotten away
for a hundred and sixty years with not paying its
own workers and essentially saying for a hundred sixty years,
we shouldn't have to pay our own workers. Other working
people who eat in our restaurants should pay our workers
(09:38):
wages for us uh and and they And as a result,
you have this immense industry of mostly women women of
color that are still paid two dollars an hour today. Stephanie,
I want to ask you a question real quick about
the research that went into unpacking all of this, But
just real quick, uh sorru on that part of it.
When you say that black women weren't as lucky in
(10:01):
terms of being able to get a minimum wage, how
were they seeing that? Did they just make it? Did
they wedge out specific occupations that were predominantly done by
black women and go everybody gets a minimum wages or
did they just go, no, you're a black, you're a woman,
no money for you. How did they do the racism
explaining the specific angle of the racism on this right, Well,
(10:25):
racism at the time was segregating black people into certain
occupations and industries that were still servile. Basically, you know,
service occupations, domestic workers, restaurant workers, porters, and those were
the occupations that were denied a minimum wage share cropping
and stuff like that. That's right. The National Restaurant Association
(10:48):
was formed twenty years before ninety nineteen nineteen with the
express intent and purpose of fighting to deny both agricultural
and restaurant workers a wage. And at the time, but
to those occupations were overwhelmingly black, and so you know,
you can say, oh, it's about industries, but those industries
were overwhelmingly black, and so really it was about denying
(11:10):
black people a wage. Stephanie, how did this segment come together?
And you know, because you know, in the building, I've
always said that to get a pitch approved for production
on the show, it's really not that different from getting
a bill passed in Congress without voting fifteen times in
a row. People. Um, but you have the idea, you
(11:33):
take it to someone else and then YouTube go get
three more people they correspond to the idea, and then
you take it up there to the house speaker, which
is Trevor at the time, like, how did the segment
come to? And what was it about it that drew
you to it? And you know, make the Daily Show
cover it? Yeah, So, um, it came about because for
a while, and it's so funny that you use that
(11:54):
analogy because for a while I've been wanting to do
something on UM, just the experience of some sort of
piece on the experience of people with disabilities, and UM,
it is exactly as you say. And so I've always,
you know, just kind of keeping my eyes open and
ears open on different things related to UM their plight.
(12:18):
And I happened upon this article that was just kind
of talking about sub minimal wages, subminimum wages. Excuse me,
and UM, the dollar amount shocked me. UM already minimum
wage As a former restaurant worker, I totally that's already
blasphemous two dollars an hour, Like are you kidding me?
(12:38):
But cents fifteen cents minimum wage isn't the same for everyone.
Businesses can take advantage of a section of a federal
act that allows them to pay people with disabilities less.
This program was established under the Roosevelt administration with arguably
good intentions. War veterans who developed physical and mental discipline
(13:00):
alities from combat came home from abroad and struggled to
find employment. There's no limit to how low an employer
can pay, so employers could legally pay pennies per hour.
There are even places in America, where workers earn as
little as twenty two cents an hour. It's all perfectly legal.
They're really working, They're not just sitting there. I don't
(13:22):
know what people think they're doing. They're actually working. It's
actual labor. And to pay somebody fifteen cents an hour
simply because they have a developmental um delay, to me
is deplorable and disgusting. And um, I was like, we
absolutely need to do this, and so I pitched it
and everybody was shocked that that that heard about it,
(13:46):
like what this is happening this and it's legal? Um,
And yeah, that's how it came about. Just the I
guess the shocking aspect of it. Nobody really believed that
this is a real thing, but it is. Is there
anything out of all of that shock and all that
stood out above everything else or was it just the
fact that it's all of this is legal. I think
(14:07):
it was multiple things. They're shocking. First of all, the
dollar amount incredibly shocking. Secondly, UM, the fact that it's
being done to people that are always already so undervalued
within our society. It just is like it's just it's
like the cherry on top of a very poor Sunday,
(14:27):
you know what I mean. Then, on top of that
the fact that it's legal to do so, and then
I think the sort of the fourth most shocking thing
is the the actual labor that they're doing. Like anybody else,
If anyone on this podcast was doing that labor, we
would be paid a substantial wage. And to give somebody
(14:47):
fifteen cents an hour simply because they have a disability
is crazy to me. And it's not certain. It's not
just developmental disabilities. It could be someone who is you know,
a crippled or um has is missing a limb or something.
It's all considered disabled and they can all be paid
at that rage and so at that wage, excuse me.
(15:08):
And so that was what was probably is the most
shocking thing now as I'm saying it. And so what
message does that sin? Like, Like what what what does that?
What does that say about the way society views these workers?
Like if we're okay with paying these people that, what
does that say about who we are? I just wrote
(15:28):
a book about this actually called one Fair Wage ending
Some of Them Pay in America, featuring workers, tipped workers
who get a submitum wage, also workers with disabilities, youth
incarcerated workers, gig workers, and if you look at each
of these categories of people who can legally be paid
less than the sub minimum wage, it is because of
(15:48):
their identity, not because of the work that they're doing
or their their skill or their professionalism. Tipped workers are
overwhelmingly women, disproportionally women of color, and were originally black
women entirely, and come on, it's two dollars after eighty
one years of a federal minimum wage law. Because they
are women and disproportion women of color, they are the
(16:09):
lowest income women in America. Incarcerated workers largely or disproportionately
black and brown, workers with disabilities simply because they have
a disability, young people simply because they're younger, gig workers
who are immigrants, and marginalized folks in our society. Each
of these categories of people who get a sub minimum
it is, frankly, in my opinion and everything I've written
(16:32):
about is it's a reflection on America's valuation of some
people as subhuman, as as less than less worth than others.
It's America's valuation of black people and women from the beginning,
right with with these two legacies of slavery, it's America's
valuation of people with disabilities, it's America's valuation of young people,
all legal, all reflected in law. It's a reflection of
(16:56):
our values in law. And it's and it is horrific
because what is the definition of the word minimum. The
idea of the word minimum is that it's the least
you can earn. That there shouldn't be anybody earning less
than it. And so if somebody can earn less than it,
it means that that somebody is not a somebody that
(17:18):
are somehow less than us. Somebody they're subhuman. They are
valued at less because of their identity. And look, in
the case of tipped workers, the fact that they're overwhelmingly
women and single moms makes them incredibly vulnerable to uh,
just horrific sexual harassment and power dynamics between customers, managers, coworkers,
(17:42):
and and the workers. So we have the highest rates
of sexual harassment of any industry in the United States
of America because you've got a workforce of women that
is basically told the customers always right, and our research
shows they're actually told by managers dress more sexy, show
more cleavage, were tighter clothing in or to make more
money in tips. That's how you're gonna do well in
(18:03):
this job is by putting yourself out there, you know,
pleasing the customer, because the customer is always right, and
that invariably leads to people being harassed and even assaulted
in really terrific ways. Now see right there, I want
to I want to take a break right there because
I want to get into that a little bit more
after the break. Because if the government says I don't
(18:25):
have to respect you as your employer, then how does
that lack of respect spill over into the actual employment
experience for the employee? This is beyond the scenes. We'll
be right back now. We've talked about how it's legal
to pay and underpay marginalized groups like they're worthless, which
(18:48):
I would imagine so rue as you already touched on
a little bit with regards to sexual harassment within the workplace,
that it leads the employee to feel like I don't
have to respect you, and it also leads to the
customer feeling like I don't have to respect you either.
What direct impact does the subminimum wage have on workers
and how does it perpetuate race, gender, and disability discrimination
(19:10):
in the workforce. I guess what are some other ways?
At least in the case of tipped workers, who are
overwhelmingly women, just proportion, women of color, single moms, they
are incredibly vulnerable to any kind of customer harassment because
they know that those customers tips feed their children. You know,
when you get a submit in wage, and I'm sure
(19:31):
both of you experienced this of two or three or
four or five dollars whatever it is in your state,
it is so low you literally it literally goes to taxes.
You get a pay stuff that says this is not
a paycheck, and it says zero. So you are literally
completely dependent on the goodwill, graces, mercy, and biases of
customers to feed your children. And those customers can basically
(19:56):
do anything to however they touch you, or treat you
or talk to you. The customer is always right. And
even beyond that, our research shows that managers actually encourage
women dress more sexy, show more cleavage, essentially sell yourself
and sell your body in order to make more money
in tips. And we know this is directly connected to
the sub minimum wage because there are seven states that
(20:18):
actually got rid of the sub minimum wage many decades ago. California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana,
and Alaska all require a full minimum wage with tips
on top and have for decades. And unlike what you
might hear from the National Restaurant Association, these seven states
actually have restaurants, actually have actually larger and and you know,
(20:40):
more booming restaurant industry than the forty three states with
the sub minimum wage, because guess what, when you pay
people a wage, they go spend it in restaurants, and
so the restaurant industry does better when you pay people better.
But what we also know from these seven states is
that sexual harassment is cut in half, one half the
rate of sexual assment. Why because the women in those
(21:02):
seven states tell us, well, I get a full wage
from my boss, I get tips. Tipping is actually higher
in California and Alaska than it is anywhere in the country.
But they're not completely dependent on the customer tips to
feed their families. They can count on that wage from
their boss, and so they don't put up with as
much from the customers. They don't have to tolerate as
(21:23):
much touching or comments or anything for customers because they
can count on that wage from the boss. Now you
said racial sexual worker with disability, So I talked about gender.
That sexual harassment is, as I said, the highest of
any industry. But it's also true that this system creates
severe racial inequities because there is now irrefutable, unsurmountable evidence
(21:47):
that actually tipping is not correlated in the United States
with the quality of service. It is correlated with the
race and gender of the server. Now there's been so
much testing. Women of color and people of color always
get tipped less, even when they are performing what's called
perfect service, even when they're right alongside a white server
(22:08):
in a fine dining restaurant because of what's called implicit
biased among customers. And we saw that get very ugly
during the pandemic. It was always there, not as explicit.
During the pandemic, it got incredibly explicit. We heard from women,
I'm regularly asked, take off your mask so I can
see how cute you are before I decide how much
(22:29):
I want to tip you. We heard that so frequently
from so many, thousands of women, we ended up coining
a term for it. We call it mascule harassment. Uh.
And then on race, we heard from so many Yeah,
we heard from so many people of color that it
went way beyond the typical just getting tipped less as
a person of color. When they tried to tell a customer,
(22:51):
you know, wear a mask, sit six ft apart as
they were forced to do, you know, show me your
VAX card, they got screamed at, they got yelled at,
they got tipped less. We had a member who was
punched in the face for trying to enforce these rules.
People were not trying to hear from people of color
what to do in the restaurants. It really reached a
point of such extreme that people started leaving in mass
(23:14):
I mean, we have done so many thousands of surveys
with workers, why are you leaving? What you know? What
would make you come back? And it's this sub minimum wage.
Over and over eight percent of workers that we've surveyed,
and we've surveyed thousands, like five thousands have said the
top reason that they're leaving the industry and what would
make them come back is the sub minimum wage. If
(23:36):
they got a full wage with tips on top, they
would consider coming back. I think part of what happened
during the pandemic as well was that a lot of
us hit rock bottoms emotionally and a lot of people fiscally.
So the idea of what do I have to lose
what I can't lose? The job? Well, COVID took the
job from you for a while, so it gave people
(23:59):
a lot of people, I believe, the strength to go no,
you know what, screw that because people made adjustments, People
figure out a way to kind of shift. Do you
also think it's rude to a degree that the power
dynamic because so many of us as employees, just if
we're just going with an average restaurant customer, most of
(24:19):
them are not supervisors at their job. Most of them
are not calling the shots at their job. So there's
a there's a there's a foot on their neck all day,
and this little meal at Applebee's is the only time
you get to be in charge. You get to call
the shots, you get to say what you want to do,
and you put on top of that a bunch of
(24:42):
two or three years of fiscal uncertainty, the pressure of
the pandemic. Nobody went to therapy. So yeah, I'm going
to fight you in this waffle house right now because
my toast was too brown. I know, wildfiles don't want
me to say their name with wildfile. They told you.
But when we talk about the disrespect towards the workers,
(25:04):
how much does general mental stresses that were under as
a society is in talking about the pandemic specifically, how
much do you think that has helped to exacerbate how
wild the customers are now acting with these workers. I mean,
I mean, yeah, everybody lost it. Everybody lost it during
the pandemic. People forgot how to act, for sure. But
(25:26):
I do want to say, Roy, it wasn't just the
customers at Applebee's, in at Waffle We saw fine dining
customers walk into restaurants, you know, take off your masks
so I can see how cute you are. I tell
you story of a server in Arizona at a very fancy, fancy,
fine dining restaurant Scottsdale, Arizona, wearing a mask because they
(25:48):
were required to by their managers. Uh. And the customer
comes in with his wife and is staring at her
breast the entire time, and at some point says, you know,
I'm so glad you're wearing a mask because it's giving
me an opportunity to look at something else all evening,
you know, or another bartender. We have member of ours,
if Foma, who worked at a really fancy fine dining
(26:09):
bar in uh In in Washington, d C. And the
customer take off your mass so I can see how
you look. And she says, no, I'm not allowed to
her managers standing right behind her, and he says, well,
I guess we know who's not going to get tipped tonight.
I guess we know who's not going to walk home
with a lot of tips tonight. The power dynamic, you know,
was always there, the ratio exactly exactly. I It is
(26:34):
a power dynamic that's always existed. It just got ugly.
It got ugly with the pandemic, and workers reached their limit.
You know, first of all, we didn't even talk about this.
Two thirds of tipped workers told us they couldn't even
get unemployment insurance because in most states they were told
that some and wage was too low to qualify for benefits.
We heard from thousands of workers in that moment. Wait
(26:57):
a second, if the government's telling me I earned too little,
being I think I earned to little, I should never
have accepted this wage to begin with. And then they
went back to work. They were told okay, now you're
gonna do two jobs for the price of a sub
minimum wage, not even the minimum wage. Now you're gonna
be a server and a public health marshal. People reached
(27:18):
their limit, Tips went down, harassment went up, People were
screamed at, yelled at. We have seen one point two
million workers leave this industry. Six of those who remains
say they're leaving and say the only thing that would
make them come back. As a Liverpool age Stephanie, during
your time in the restaurant industry, I'm going to assume
harassment was a part of that at some point. Okay,
(27:42):
how do you move around that on a day to
day to keep the job, to keep the customer happy
enough to get a top like when the aga are
you going at? Shifting and because you're trying to navigate
around the harassment while still maintaining a positive connection with
this person to get yes. I think, just in general,
for women, particularly as a woman living in New York,
(28:05):
how you move, how you navigate in a restaurant environment,
is how you navigate on the streets of this city
where it's a say it's a similar thing. I think, Um,
you just you have to smile and and be polite
and that's always what managers, just as U saw was saying,
they always try to, you know, tell us to to
act in that manner. But I can when I think
(28:26):
about the people I interacted with. UM. Luckily, honestly, I
didn't experience an extreme amount of like harassment, but I
did seem a disproportionate way and which I was treated
in terms of with interacting with managers and like male
co workers were treated, UM, it was drastically different. I
remember UM having more tables, UM, feeling like I was
(28:51):
running around like a chicken with my neck cut off,
and having co workers just like hanging around and not
getting support for my tay bulls. UM. I remember confronting
a manager about it and UM about like, you know,
why am why do I have so many tables? And
why am I working so much harder than my other
coworkers And it was kind of like dismissed. So UM.
(29:15):
I think basically everything she has said is absolutely true,
and it is not an environment that is meant to
to help women, and certainly not an environment mental help
women of color succeed. Frankly, I'm sorry that all of
that happened to you. After the break we need to
get to the bottom of why is this ship still
(29:37):
happening and keeping people from getting them. I'm sorry for yelling.
I don't mean to raise my voice at your ladies.
That's not I'm not raising my voice at y'all and
raising my voice it's fake fucking politicians. Beyond the scenes.
I'm perfectly calm. We'll be right back beyond the scenes.
Were around and third and hit it for home. We're
talking some minimum wage now. The government has decided workers
(30:01):
ain't worth the dam, which means that the employers have
decided that the workers ain't worth the dam either, which
means the customers have decided that the workers ain't worth
the dam. Stephanie sorrow. How do we stop this? And
why is it still going on? I would imagine in
(30:23):
twenty that there's probably been a couple of laws, of referendums,
of suggestions in the White House email box saying hey,
can I get a couple of dollars please? Why has
this not changed? Sorry? Like, why is this still happening?
So first, I do want to say it's been a
long time in coming, and I want to tell you
(30:45):
who why it's not been happening, But there's something very
hopeful we should start with. We are experiencing this historic moment.
Our members are calling it. It's not even a great resignation,
it's a great revolution where workers for the first time
since emancipation are standing up, walking out, demanding I'm not
gonna work unless I get a full minimum wage. And
(31:08):
it is in response, we're seeing thousands of restaurants for
the first time ever having to raise wages from two
and three and four. We're tracking restaurants paying fifteen restaurants
and we're seeing some restaurant keepe Cod paying fifty bucks
an hour plush because they cannot get staff any other way.
So we're in a very hopeful moment. But it brings
(31:30):
us to the question of why has it taken so long?
What has what's blocked us all these years? And it
answers very clear, very simple. After emancipation, restaurants, as I said,
wanted the ability to hire newly freed slaves, and in
nineteen nineteen they actually formed an association to keep it
so forever, called the National Restaurant Association. We call it
(31:55):
the other n r A. Uh. It's been around for
a hundred years, arguing we shouldn't have to pay our
workers because you do. Basically, they won this in nineteen
thirty eight. They won it in every every time the
minimum wage goes up, they make sure it stays low,
and they make sure tipped workers are always left behind.
(32:15):
You all remember Herman Kaine, Well, Herman Kaine exactly exactly.
Herman Kaine was the head of the National Restaurant Association
back in nineteen ninety six when Clinton was president, and
he struck a deal with Congress saying, sure, you can
go ahead and let the overall minimum wage go up
(32:36):
as long as tipped workers are frozen forever. And so
in nineteen ninety six we saw the wage for tipped
workers stay. It went up the last time in it's been,
you know, ridiculous thirty two years since this wage has
gone up. We have mothers and daughters who have worked
for two dollars and thirteen cents and our through their
(32:57):
whole careers. And it's because basically Congress, part Democrats and
Republicans have struck deals with the National Restaurant Association basically
agreeing that every time the minimum wage goes up, these workers,
these women get thrown under the bus and and here's
the thing. So New York Times has just reported that, um,
(33:19):
you know information that we shared with them that actually,
all these years they've spent so much money the Restaurant
Association funding you know, contributions to elected officials candidates that
then vote with them, that then say, okay, fine, we'll
leave the tip to workers. Out turns out all of
(33:40):
that money, instead of coming from the member corporations that
drive the other n r A like Applebee's and IHA
and Olive Garden and Chili's, turns out that all of
that money actually comes from low wage workers who are
funding their lobbying without knowing it. So if two thousand
nine it was the last time to or a minimum
(34:00):
wage went up and tipped workers were left at two
dollars and thirteen cents an hour, and the Restaurant Association
decided after two thousand nine that that was it. They
never wanted to let the minimum wage go up again,
and they certainly didn't want tipped workers to ever go up.
So they basically went to the states, the four states
with the largest restaurant industries California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and
(34:22):
they got bills passed in each of those states requiring
workers to take food handler training and pay for it. Now,
it just so happens at the Restaurant Association owns the
monopoly company that provides food handler training called Serve Safe.
And so millions of workers each year are forced to
(34:43):
take this training. And guess where that money goes. It
goes to the Restaurant Association and they turn around and
use it to lobby against those same low wage workers interests.
So low wage workers are funding the lobbying of the
other n r A to the tune of eighty million
dollars a year god, and that lobbying is then used
(35:03):
to get both Democrats and Republicans to agree that fine,
every time the wage goes up, we leave the tipped
workers out because those poor restaurants. Everybody else can be
forced to pay the minimum wage, but those poor restaurants
have to be left out. They don't have to pay
the minimum wage even though everybody else does. So it's
a nefarious history that finally, finally, we are reaching a
(35:26):
moment of victory because workers in the millions are finally
saying enough is enough, regardless of what you do. You
you know, I want to say the words elected officials
and Restaurant Association. We're not putting up with it anymore,
So try to staff your restaurants without How do you
Stephanie take everything that she just said and boiled that
(35:48):
down into like thirty seconds and a joke, like talk
a little bit like I mean, it's silly, but I'm serious.
Like talk a little bit about and something starts making
you upset when you start peeling back the layers of it.
Talk a little bit about the creative difficulties and deciding
what to keep within a piece versus what to leave
(36:10):
on the cutting room floor, because there's so much that
you can pack into a story, but we only have
so much time on the actual Like on the mother
Ship show, I'm saying, yeah, I think what I try
to focus on, Um, you know we're talking earlier about
the most shocking things. So the things that affected me
immediately from the story, those are the things that absolutely
(36:31):
need to go into the story. And then and thinking
about that, I try to think about, Okay, so what
is the logic behind the the villain or the perpetrator
of this wrong, what is their mindset? And then trying
to think about like the nuggets within the story that
emphasized that because that's where the humor is. Like we're
(36:53):
clearly society is always punching down, is already punching down
at these workers, so they're not the subject of the humor. Obviously,
it's going to be the people that are doing things
like what sorry just described to me. You heard me,
I was like, like the entire time because it's just
so ridiculous. So that's where the humor is. So not
only am I not going to pay you, but I'm
(37:14):
going to use your the very little money I already
give you to fund me to continue to not pay
you like that is It's like I don't want to
just do you wrong. I want to do you just dirty.
And that's the humor. I don't know about you too,
but I'm inspired to own a restaurant all of a sudden.
(37:35):
It's not like a good ass hustle to me. Really.
The thing that's always funny to me. Also when across
particularly in the United States, whenever there's an issue of oh,
there's not money, you know, the the big wigs always
him and hand, there's no money, there's not enough money.
We can't do it because we can't afford it. There's
always money. They always find the money. Okay, So like, yeah,
(37:57):
to your point, all these rushstaurants that fought us for
so long on this issue, so many of them are
now paying this because they can't get staff to come
back any other way. So you're right, they found the money. Look,
there have always been amazing small business We have an
association of two thousand, five hundred small business restaurants that
are actually leading the way on this issue but actually
(38:19):
agree with us. We need to pay everybody a full
wage because it's better for the bottom line. Guess what
workers do when they're paid more, They actually provide us
with better service. They don't leave, they don't quit, you know,
they stay longer, they're loyal. They provide better food and
better service, and they go spend it in our economy,
they go spend it in restaurants. So there are plenty
(38:40):
of great restaurant owners that have always done this, and
now with this great revolution, thousands more restaurants are following
their lead. Because look, even Applebee's Applebee's Applebee's, which fits
this and leads this, you know, National Restaurant Association, Guess
what they're doing. They, like everybody else, have to pay
(39:01):
more so they're starting to pay fifteen in Utah and
Nebraska and West Virginia, and we saw them paying twenty
dollars an hour in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania and um and yet
they're still paying two dollars and thirteen cents in Birmingham
and three dollars in Detroit. So you tell me what's
different between the states I mentioned and Birmingham and Detroit,
(39:24):
because and it's very clear in New York, Applebee's is
offering fifteen to workers in Manhattan and ten dollars to
workers in Harlem and the Bronx and the Queens. So
they are having to raise wages, but they will stick
to their racism to the very last, you know, moment,
pick and choose. Help me to understand the difference when
we're talking about the bigger corporations that have money and
(39:46):
shareholders and investors, and they can move around move around money.
The restaurant industry, if we're just talking at the mom
and pop level, it's very volatile. It's still an industry
where most of the restaurants fail within the first year.
I think it's months, was the last statistic that I heard.
So what do you say, it's a route to the
counter that without the sub minimum wage that people with
(40:09):
disabilities wouldn't have as many employement opportunities because of the
A d A Act. Or if I just run my
little barbecue hud and you're gonna make me pay my
service ten dollars an hour, but now I got to
raise my menu prices and customers when they find out
who they're gonna stop to. I don't know why I'm
talking like that, Stephaniely it's a Mississippi barbecue hood, but
(40:34):
this idea as a restaurant owner, Okay, I want to
pay them more, but if I do, I have to
change my whole business model. I might have to fire
two servers. Like, is there any validity to that counter
argument to raising some minimum wage? Look, the validity comes
from the Restaurant Association telling these small mom and pop
(40:56):
businesses for years this is the only way to do it.
If you pay more, you're going to go out of business.
They terrify them, so I we feel for their fear,
but the fear is not based on reality, because the
truth is, we have helped thousands of small business restaurants
make this transition profitably. There are ways to do it.
(41:17):
We have actually a calculator that helps restaurants put in
their menu prices and staff size. We show them how
to make the adjustments profitably. So many restaurants, thousands have
just done it. Roy there are restaurants right. I can
give you a list of over fifty restaurants in Mississippi
that are currently paying a full minimum wage with tips
on top, because so many restaurants have had to move
(41:38):
in this direction in order to recruit staff. So what
we say back to small business employers is, we know
you've been told that it's impossible or really hard, that
you're gonna have to lay people up, but it's just
not true. And what is your option right now? No staff,
You're not gonna have enough staff to fully operate unless
you make the change. Here's how you get how so
(41:58):
many other restaurants have done it profitably. Okay, but if
I run the mom and pop barbecue spot, and this
doesn't necessarily compare to some minimum wage, but it's it's
part of the larger conversation about the restaurant industry. When
we talk about the fight for fifteen and all of
the fast food work is gone. I want fifteen dollars,
and then the restaurant industry going cool, here's your fifteen dollars.
(42:19):
Half of you're fired, and now we're gonna put in
self service Kiosk touch screens and everybody. Do you think
what's happening in the adjustments that have happened in the
fast food industry with the fight for fifteen is used
to help fuel the fear to control the independent restaurants
that are still dealing with the minimum wage. We're not
wanting to increase our sut minimum wage. That's definitely the
(42:42):
argument and the fear for sure, But um, it is not.
It's not actually born out to be the truth. Actually,
Roy the states that have raised wages and ended some
minimum wages have actually higher job growth rate, So fast
food workers have not been replaced by chios overwhelmingly. There
might be one or two places where you might see that,
(43:04):
but if you look at data, the states with the
highest wages have the largest restaurant industries and the greatest
job growth rates in the restaurant industry. Why again, it's
because in those states those fast food workers are doing
guess what, They're going out and they're spending it, and
so the industry grows more. Restaurants can survive if more
workers are able to take their families to eat, we forget.
(43:26):
This is the largest industry in America. Means it's the
largest population of consumers who will eat out in restaurants.
And by the way, tip better, because you both know,
after having lived on the tipman and wage, you're gonna
tip better. So they spend it, they eat out, they
tip better. They're better customers. Frankly, uh, and so we
need to value them as customers. I do want to say,
(43:48):
because I know we're running out of time. We are
just experienced the most wonderful historic moment of victory on
this issue. Finally talk about the growth. Let's get some
good news was in here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because all
of these fears you're lifting up, uh, you know, have
gone out the window, as workers have basically said enough
(44:09):
is enough. So as a result, we won. We won
in Michigan and d C. Michigan just went from three
dollars for tipped workers to twelve dollars an hour, and
d C just went from five dollars to sixteen seventy five.
And we've got bills and ballot measures moving in over
a dozen states this year and next year, all because
workers have reached their limit and they're saying enough is enough.
(44:31):
You have to stop listening to the restaurant Association. In fact,
you have to stop listening to the restaurant Association because
they're using our money to make their arguments part and part. Okay,
last question, then, what can we do other than tip better?
What can the average person do to support workers much?
Yeah for asking that question. The number one thing is
(44:55):
to right now go to our website. There's a tool
on our website one fair Wage dot org that allows
you to click to send your legislator a message saying
stop taking money from the restaurant Association is taken fraudulently
from low wage workers, and support passing one fair wage
a full minimum wage with tips on top. That's number one.
(45:15):
But also if you go to high Road Restaurants dot org,
you'll see a list of restaurants that are currently offering
a full minimum wage with tips on top, thousands of
them in every state. We want you to definitely support
those restaurants. More importantly, wherever you eat, show that list
on your phone to the owner manager at the end
of your meal, say hey, I don't see you on
this list. I love eating here. I love the food,
(45:38):
I love the service, but I want to see you
on this list of restaurants paying a full minimum wage
with tips on top. Otherwise I don't want to keep
supporting a restaurant that's taking my tips and using it
to pay the workers wages. I want my tips to
be on top of a wage, not rather than instead
of a wage. Need you to communicate every time you
eat out, not to the server they don't have power,
(45:58):
not to the any of the workers, but to the
manager owner at the end of your meal and say
I need to see you pay a full wage because
you know I think when I tip, it should go
to the workers on top of a wage, not instead
of a wage. Well, I wish that we had more time,
because if we did, I would have asked you a
question about all of these other random places where I
(46:22):
know you're getting a full wage and then you can
just put out a homemade tip jar up And it
was a non service based industry. I understand service base
like cold Stone Creamery, cool, but come on, man, this
is an oil change spot I have. I'm here to
buy a printer. Why is there a tip jar next
(46:43):
to the cash registered to place to buy the printers.
I'm not going to all the companies want what the
restaurant industry has. The more they Apple pay makes us
tip everywhere, the more and more companies are gonna say,
well they get tips, I can pay a subminimum. We've
got to get rid of the subminimum so it doesn't
keep growing into every free freaking industry. We'll get tipped everywhere. Well,
thank you all, so so much. That's all the time
(47:06):
we have for today. Thank you to our guess, Stephanie
and Sarud for going beyond the scene and also tip
on carry out orders. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond
the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the podcast that goes
deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on The
Daily Show. This is what this podcast is like, right,
this podcast, it's like a smoothie, you know, you know,
we're the with the perfect blend of healthy fruit, a
little bit of protein powder, lots of lots of greens,
or that dumbass cheese seed or that flax seeds you
(00:29):
bought at the beginning of the year because you told
yourself New Year, knew me, I'm gonna put flax seed
and everything, and you realize it's disgusted. That's what this
podcast is. A ROYD. Wood Jr. Today, we're talking about
the sub minimum wage. That's right, that's what I said,
sub minimum wave even less than venimum wage roll the clip.
(00:54):
The federal minimum wage is seven dollars and cents an hour,
but in forty three eights, employers are allowed to pay
tipped workers less, some as little as two dollars and
thirteen cents an hour, a federal wage which is not
increased in twenty five years. The rationale is that customers
tips are supposed to make up the difference between two
dollars and thirteen cents an hour and the minimum wage,
(01:17):
and if the tipped employee doesn't receive the minimum wage
through tips, employers are required to pay the difference. In
the industry, it's called topping up. In seven states, including Minnesota,
topping up is not an issue because those states require
employers to pay tipped workers the full minimum wage. Tips
are considered additional income tamp Let's talk about this a
(01:39):
little bit more. I'm joined by Daily Show Deep Dive
researchers Stephanie Oh, who was the original person who pitched
this segment. Stephanie, thank you for being underpaid for so
long that you finally got a spot on the show
to speak out against this issue. How you doing, I'm good.
How are you Roy? I'm okay, I'm okay. Also joining
(02:00):
us for this conversation it is the president of One
Fair Wage and the director of the Food Labor Research
Center at the UC Berkeley, sorru J Raman. Welcome to
the show. How you doing, su I'm so good. Thank
you so much for having me. Now, let's start from
the top. As the great Chris Rock once said in
(02:20):
his first comedy album, Born Suspect, Deep Cutshit. On this podcast,
Chris Rock said that minimum wage is your boss's way
of saying, Hey, if I could pay you less, I would,
but it's against the law. So when we talk about
sub minimum wage, first off, let's define what sub minimum wages,
(02:44):
and then let's get into who's affected the most by it. Well, sadly,
some minimum wage is the way Chris Rock that your
boss legally pays you less than the minimum wage. Um
and it is a direct legacy of slavery that has
resul halted in six million workers in the United States
legally being paid less than the minimum wage because supposedly
(03:08):
their tips bring them from that sub minimum wage to
the regular minimum wage. And actually the employer is supposed
to ensure for every hour that they work that tips
actually bring them to the full minimum wage. But data
shows that an eight four percent of cases at least
that doesn't happen. And who's the most affected by this?
(03:29):
You know, I've waited, I pretty much have done everything
you could possibly do in food service, from front of
the house to back of the house, and even as
a tip worker at some spots you were forced to
share tips with people in the back of the house
who were getting minimum wage but are there any other
groups that are affected by this sorrow. Yes, tipped workers
(03:49):
in the US are overwhelmingly women. They're over se women,
and they have been frankly since emancipation, when this whole
system was created. Did They're over two thirds women. They
are disproportioned women of color. We have the highest rates
of single mothers of any industry in the United States,
and they are the They are overwhelmingly single moms and
(04:13):
women who work at very casual restaurants, so eye hops
and Denny's, Olive Garden, red Lobster. They don't less than
five percent actually work in fine dining. They are overwhelmingly
working in very casual restaurants. They struggle with three times
the poverty rate of other workers. They use food stamps
at double the rate of other workers. UM. So they're
(04:34):
overwhelmingly young women of color. Sometimes when I say young,
I don't mean teenagers. I mean in their thirties. They
have children. The median age is actually mid thirty five,
and they are the lowest income women in America. Actually,
what about when we talk about, you know, like I
had a boss. I'll tell your brief story. I worked
(04:57):
at a food spot in Birmingham at sixt You know,
I was closing the store at two in the morning,
which is against every child laborl law ever written. That's
a separate law that's being broken. But talk a little
bit about the youth workers and incarcerated workers and how
they could also be taken advantage of it, as well
(05:17):
as members of the disabled community. So first of all, uh,
let me just say there are actually multiple sub minimum
wages in the US. There's the sub minimum wage for
tipped workers, which is the largest population of workers earning
less than the minimum wage, six million workers. There's a
sub minimum wage for workers with disabilities, as you said,
that's existed since the establishment of the Fair Labor Standards Act,
(05:40):
based completely just on the idea that people with disabilities
are less productive, um, not completely human. Basically, there's a
submitum wage in many states for youth based on the
idea that somehow young people deserve to be paid less
when they work. There's a submium wage for incarcerated workers
that is a direct a second legacy of slavery that
(06:00):
comes directly from, of course, the Thirteenth Amendment and the
ability to continue slavery in the case of incarceration. Incarceration um.
But returning to that first biggest chunk, which is six
million tipped workers in America. As I said, direct legacy
of slavery was created at emancipation in order to basically
(06:21):
allow the restaurant industry to hire black people for free,
black women in particular, not pay them anything, and have
them live entirely on a new thing that had just
come from Europe at the time called tipping. And that
notion of tipping had originated in feudal Europe and it
was always since feudal times, an extra bonus on top
of a wage. We in the US uniquely uniquely mutated
(06:45):
it into a replacement four wages, creating the submit wage
basically as a way to continue slavery at emancipation, and
that idea was made law in nineteen thirty eight when
everybody got the right to the federal minimum wage for
for the first time, but tipped workers were overwhelmingly Black
women were left out and told you get zero as
(07:05):
long as you get tips. So tipping comes from Europe.
And then Americans go, well, how about I just not
give you anything and you just keep whatever a penny
somebody throw at your ass before the end of your shift.
When when did we get to the actual minimum wage
for the first time. Actually, I do have to share
one more thing before we get to the actual minimum wage,
(07:28):
which is at emancipation, there were actually two industries that
sought to hire newly freed black people, not pay them
anything and have them live on tips. One was the
Pullman train company that hired newly freed black men uh
and as porters on trains, tried to pay them just
in tips. But as many of you know, A Philip
Randall formed the first black union in the United States,
(07:49):
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Borders, and won the right
to an actual wage rather than living on tips. Black
women were hired by the restaurant industry, and we're not
so lucky. There was no union for them, and so
they were left, as you told, with as you said,
with just tips, no wage. And that idea that black
women could be paid nothing but tips was made law
(08:12):
in nineteen thirty eight when everybody else got the right
to a federal minimum wage for the first time, but
tipped workers, who are overwhelmingly women women of color, were
left out and told you don't get anything, you just
get tips. And we went from a zero dollar wage
in night, all the way up to two dollars and
thirteen cents an hour, the current federal minimum wage for
(08:33):
tipped workers in twenty twenty three. And I was saying,
listen back to your question of like who these workers are.
Sometimes when I share this data, people say that's terrible,
but in their mind they're thinking, Oh, that's okay, because
it's just one tiny sliver of the population. The restaurant
industry is current then currently the number one fastest growing
private sector employer in the United States of America. It
(08:56):
is the largest employer of women. It is the largest
employer of young people. Of restaurant workers are under the
age of twenty four. It is the largest employer formally
incarcerated people. It is the largest employer immigrants. It's the
largest employer period. One and two Americans has worked in
the industry at some point in their lifetime. Just like
Stephanie and Roy, you both worked in the industry. Industry,
(09:18):
right half of America has worked in this industry. And
yet despite its size and its growth and the fact
that we've all worked in it, it has gotten away
for a hundred and sixty years with not paying its
own workers and essentially saying for a hundred sixty years,
we shouldn't have to pay our own workers. Other working
people who eat in our restaurants should pay our workers
(09:38):
wages for us uh and and they And as a result,
you have this immense industry of mostly women women of
color that are still paid two dollars an hour today. Stephanie,
I want to ask you a question real quick about
the research that went into unpacking all of this, But
just real quick, uh sorru on that part of it.
When you say that black women weren't as lucky in
(10:01):
terms of being able to get a minimum wage, how
were they seeing that? Did they just make it? Did
they wedge out specific occupations that were predominantly done by
black women and go everybody gets a minimum wages or
did they just go, no, you're a black, you're a woman,
no money for you. How did they do the racism
explaining the specific angle of the racism on this right, Well,
(10:25):
racism at the time was segregating black people into certain
occupations and industries that were still servile. Basically, you know,
service occupations, domestic workers, restaurant workers, porters, and those were
the occupations that were denied a minimum wage share cropping
and stuff like that. That's right. The National Restaurant Association
(10:48):
was formed twenty years before ninety nineteen nineteen with the
express intent and purpose of fighting to deny both agricultural
and restaurant workers a wage. And at the time, but
to those occupations were overwhelmingly black, and so you know,
you can say, oh, it's about industries, but those industries
were overwhelmingly black, and so really it was about denying
(11:10):
black people a wage. Stephanie, how did this segment come together?
And you know, because you know, in the building, I've
always said that to get a pitch approved for production
on the show, it's really not that different from getting
a bill passed in Congress without voting fifteen times in
a row. People. Um, but you have the idea, you
(11:33):
take it to someone else and then YouTube go get
three more people they correspond to the idea, and then
you take it up there to the house speaker, which
is Trevor at the time, like, how did the segment
come to? And what was it about it that drew
you to it? And you know, make the Daily Show
cover it? Yeah, So, um, it came about because for
a while, and it's so funny that you use that
(11:54):
analogy because for a while I've been wanting to do
something on UM, just the experience of some sort of
piece on the experience of people with disabilities, and UM,
it is exactly as you say. And so I've always,
you know, just kind of keeping my eyes open and
ears open on different things related to UM their plight.
(12:18):
And I happened upon this article that was just kind
of talking about sub minimal wages, subminimum wages. Excuse me,
and UM, the dollar amount shocked me. UM already minimum
wage As a former restaurant worker, I totally that's already
blasphemous two dollars an hour, Like are you kidding me?
(12:38):
But cents fifteen cents minimum wage isn't the same for everyone.
Businesses can take advantage of a section of a federal
act that allows them to pay people with disabilities less.
This program was established under the Roosevelt administration with arguably
good intentions. War veterans who developed physical and mental discipline
(13:00):
alities from combat came home from abroad and struggled to
find employment. There's no limit to how low an employer
can pay, so employers could legally pay pennies per hour.
There are even places in America, where workers earn as
little as twenty two cents an hour. It's all perfectly legal.
They're really working, They're not just sitting there. I don't
(13:22):
know what people think they're doing. They're actually working. It's
actual labor. And to pay somebody fifteen cents an hour
simply because they have a developmental um delay, to me
is deplorable and disgusting. And um, I was like, we
absolutely need to do this, and so I pitched it
and everybody was shocked that that that heard about it,
(13:46):
like what this is happening this and it's legal? Um,
And yeah, that's how it came about. Just the I
guess the shocking aspect of it. Nobody really believed that
this is a real thing, but it is. Is there
anything out of all of that shock and all that
stood out above everything else or was it just the
fact that it's all of this is legal. I think
(14:07):
it was multiple things. They're shocking. First of all, the
dollar amount incredibly shocking. Secondly, UM, the fact that it's
being done to people that are always already so undervalued
within our society. It just is like it's just it's
like the cherry on top of a very poor Sunday,
(14:27):
you know what I mean. Then, on top of that
the fact that it's legal to do so, and then
I think the sort of the fourth most shocking thing
is the the actual labor that they're doing. Like anybody else,
If anyone on this podcast was doing that labor, we
would be paid a substantial wage. And to give somebody
(14:47):
fifteen cents an hour simply because they have a disability
is crazy to me. And it's not certain. It's not
just developmental disabilities. It could be someone who is you know,
a crippled or um has is missing a limb or something.
It's all considered disabled and they can all be paid
at that rage and so at that wage, excuse me.
(15:08):
And so that was what was probably is the most
shocking thing now as I'm saying it. And so what
message does that sin? Like, Like what what what does that?
What does that say about the way society views these workers?
Like if we're okay with paying these people that, what
does that say about who we are? I just wrote
(15:28):
a book about this actually called one Fair Wage ending
Some of Them Pay in America, featuring workers, tipped workers
who get a submitum wage, also workers with disabilities, youth
incarcerated workers, gig workers, and if you look at each
of these categories of people who can legally be paid
less than the sub minimum wage, it is because of
(15:48):
their identity, not because of the work that they're doing
or their their skill or their professionalism. Tipped workers are
overwhelmingly women, disproportionally women of color, and were originally black
women entirely, and come on, it's two dollars after eighty
one years of a federal minimum wage law. Because they
are women and disproportion women of color, they are the
(16:09):
lowest income women in America. Incarcerated workers largely or disproportionately
black and brown, workers with disabilities simply because they have
a disability, young people simply because they're younger, gig workers
who are immigrants, and marginalized folks in our society. Each
of these categories of people who get a sub minimum
it is, frankly, in my opinion and everything I've written
(16:32):
about is it's a reflection on America's valuation of some
people as subhuman, as as less than less worth than others.
It's America's valuation of black people and women from the beginning,
right with with these two legacies of slavery, it's America's
valuation of people with disabilities, it's America's valuation of young people,
all legal, all reflected in law. It's a reflection of
(16:56):
our values in law. And it's and it is horrific
because what is the definition of the word minimum. The
idea of the word minimum is that it's the least
you can earn. That there shouldn't be anybody earning less
than it. And so if somebody can earn less than it,
it means that that somebody is not a somebody that
(17:18):
are somehow less than us. Somebody they're subhuman. They are
valued at less because of their identity. And look, in
the case of tipped workers, the fact that they're overwhelmingly
women and single moms makes them incredibly vulnerable to uh,
just horrific sexual harassment and power dynamics between customers, managers, coworkers,
(17:42):
and and the workers. So we have the highest rates
of sexual harassment of any industry in the United States
of America because you've got a workforce of women that
is basically told the customers always right, and our research
shows they're actually told by managers dress more sexy, show
more cleavage, were tighter clothing in or to make more
money in tips. That's how you're gonna do well in
(18:03):
this job is by putting yourself out there, you know,
pleasing the customer, because the customer is always right, and
that invariably leads to people being harassed and even assaulted
in really terrific ways. Now see right there, I want
to I want to take a break right there because
I want to get into that a little bit more
after the break. Because if the government says I don't
(18:25):
have to respect you as your employer, then how does
that lack of respect spill over into the actual employment
experience for the employee? This is beyond the scenes. We'll
be right back now. We've talked about how it's legal
to pay and underpay marginalized groups like they're worthless, which
(18:48):
I would imagine so rue as you already touched on
a little bit with regards to sexual harassment within the workplace,
that it leads the employee to feel like I don't
have to respect you, and it also leads to the
customer feeling like I don't have to respect you either.
What direct impact does the subminimum wage have on workers
and how does it perpetuate race, gender, and disability discrimination
(19:10):
in the workforce. I guess what are some other ways?
At least in the case of tipped workers, who are
overwhelmingly women, just proportion, women of color, single moms, they
are incredibly vulnerable to any kind of customer harassment because
they know that those customers tips feed their children. You know,
when you get a submit in wage, and I'm sure
(19:31):
both of you experienced this of two or three or
four or five dollars whatever it is in your state,
it is so low you literally it literally goes to taxes.
You get a pay stuff that says this is not
a paycheck, and it says zero. So you are literally
completely dependent on the goodwill, graces, mercy, and biases of
customers to feed your children. And those customers can basically
(19:56):
do anything to however they touch you, or treat you
or talk to you. The customer is always right. And
even beyond that, our research shows that managers actually encourage
women dress more sexy, show more cleavage, essentially sell yourself
and sell your body in order to make more money
in tips. And we know this is directly connected to
the sub minimum wage because there are seven states that
(20:18):
actually got rid of the sub minimum wage many decades ago. California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana,
and Alaska all require a full minimum wage with tips
on top and have for decades. And unlike what you
might hear from the National Restaurant Association, these seven states
actually have restaurants, actually have actually larger and and you know,
(20:40):
more booming restaurant industry than the forty three states with
the sub minimum wage, because guess what, when you pay
people a wage, they go spend it in restaurants, and
so the restaurant industry does better when you pay people better.
But what we also know from these seven states is
that sexual harassment is cut in half, one half the
rate of sexual assment. Why because the women in those
(21:02):
seven states tell us, well, I get a full wage
from my boss, I get tips. Tipping is actually higher
in California and Alaska than it is anywhere in the country.
But they're not completely dependent on the customer tips to
feed their families. They can count on that wage from
their boss, and so they don't put up with as
much from the customers. They don't have to tolerate as
(21:23):
much touching or comments or anything for customers because they
can count on that wage from the boss. Now you
said racial sexual worker with disability, So I talked about gender.
That sexual harassment is, as I said, the highest of
any industry. But it's also true that this system creates
severe racial inequities because there is now irrefutable, unsurmountable evidence
(21:47):
that actually tipping is not correlated in the United States
with the quality of service. It is correlated with the
race and gender of the server. Now there's been so
much testing. Women of color and people of color always
get tipped less, even when they are performing what's called
perfect service, even when they're right alongside a white server
(22:08):
in a fine dining restaurant because of what's called implicit
biased among customers. And we saw that get very ugly
during the pandemic. It was always there, not as explicit.
During the pandemic, it got incredibly explicit. We heard from women,
I'm regularly asked, take off your mask so I can
see how cute you are before I decide how much
(22:29):
I want to tip you. We heard that so frequently
from so many, thousands of women, we ended up coining
a term for it. We call it mascule harassment. Uh.
And then on race, we heard from so many Yeah,
we heard from so many people of color that it
went way beyond the typical just getting tipped less as
a person of color. When they tried to tell a customer,
(22:51):
you know, wear a mask, sit six ft apart as
they were forced to do, you know, show me your
VAX card, they got screamed at, they got yelled at,
they got tipped less. We had a member who was
punched in the face for trying to enforce these rules.
People were not trying to hear from people of color
what to do in the restaurants. It really reached a
point of such extreme that people started leaving in mass
(23:14):
I mean, we have done so many thousands of surveys
with workers, why are you leaving? What you know? What
would make you come back? And it's this sub minimum wage.
Over and over eight percent of workers that we've surveyed,
and we've surveyed thousands, like five thousands have said the
top reason that they're leaving the industry and what would
make them come back is the sub minimum wage. If
(23:36):
they got a full wage with tips on top, they
would consider coming back. I think part of what happened
during the pandemic as well was that a lot of
us hit rock bottoms emotionally and a lot of people fiscally.
So the idea of what do I have to lose
what I can't lose? The job? Well, COVID took the
job from you for a while, so it gave people
(23:59):
a lot of people, I believe, the strength to go no,
you know what, screw that because people made adjustments, People
figure out a way to kind of shift. Do you
also think it's rude to a degree that the power
dynamic because so many of us as employees, just if
we're just going with an average restaurant customer, most of
(24:19):
them are not supervisors at their job. Most of them
are not calling the shots at their job. So there's
a there's a there's a foot on their neck all day,
and this little meal at Applebee's is the only time
you get to be in charge. You get to call
the shots, you get to say what you want to do,
and you put on top of that a bunch of
(24:42):
two or three years of fiscal uncertainty, the pressure of
the pandemic. Nobody went to therapy. So yeah, I'm going
to fight you in this waffle house right now because
my toast was too brown. I know, wildfiles don't want
me to say their name with wildfile. They told you.
But when we talk about the disrespect towards the workers,
(25:04):
how much does general mental stresses that were under as
a society is in talking about the pandemic specifically, how
much do you think that has helped to exacerbate how
wild the customers are now acting with these workers. I mean,
I mean, yeah, everybody lost it. Everybody lost it during
the pandemic. People forgot how to act, for sure. But
(25:26):
I do want to say, Roy, it wasn't just the
customers at Applebee's, in at Waffle We saw fine dining
customers walk into restaurants, you know, take off your masks
so I can see how cute you are. I tell
you story of a server in Arizona at a very fancy, fancy,
fine dining restaurant Scottsdale, Arizona, wearing a mask because they
(25:48):
were required to by their managers. Uh. And the customer
comes in with his wife and is staring at her
breast the entire time, and at some point says, you know,
I'm so glad you're wearing a mask because it's giving
me an opportunity to look at something else all evening,
you know, or another bartender. We have member of ours,
if Foma, who worked at a really fancy fine dining
(26:09):
bar in uh In in Washington, d C. And the
customer take off your mass so I can see how
you look. And she says, no, I'm not allowed to
her managers standing right behind her, and he says, well,
I guess we know who's not going to get tipped tonight.
I guess we know who's not going to walk home
with a lot of tips tonight. The power dynamic, you know,
was always there, the ratio exactly exactly. I It is
(26:34):
a power dynamic that's always existed. It just got ugly.
It got ugly with the pandemic, and workers reached their limit.
You know, first of all, we didn't even talk about this.
Two thirds of tipped workers told us they couldn't even
get unemployment insurance because in most states they were told
that some and wage was too low to qualify for benefits.
We heard from thousands of workers in that moment. Wait
(26:57):
a second, if the government's telling me I earned too little,
being I think I earned to little, I should never
have accepted this wage to begin with. And then they
went back to work. They were told okay, now you're
gonna do two jobs for the price of a sub
minimum wage, not even the minimum wage. Now you're gonna
be a server and a public health marshal. People reached
(27:18):
their limit, Tips went down, harassment went up, People were
screamed at, yelled at. We have seen one point two
million workers leave this industry. Six of those who remains
say they're leaving and say the only thing that would
make them come back. As a Liverpool age Stephanie, during
your time in the restaurant industry, I'm going to assume
harassment was a part of that at some point. Okay,
(27:42):
how do you move around that on a day to
day to keep the job, to keep the customer happy
enough to get a top like when the aga are
you going at? Shifting and because you're trying to navigate
around the harassment while still maintaining a positive connection with
this person to get yes. I think, just in general,
for women, particularly as a woman living in New York,
(28:05):
how you move, how you navigate in a restaurant environment,
is how you navigate on the streets of this city
where it's a say it's a similar thing. I think, Um,
you just you have to smile and and be polite
and that's always what managers, just as U saw was saying,
they always try to, you know, tell us to to
act in that manner. But I can when I think
(28:26):
about the people I interacted with. UM. Luckily, honestly, I
didn't experience an extreme amount of like harassment, but I
did seem a disproportionate way and which I was treated
in terms of with interacting with managers and like male
co workers were treated, UM, it was drastically different. I
remember UM having more tables, UM, feeling like I was
(28:51):
running around like a chicken with my neck cut off,
and having co workers just like hanging around and not
getting support for my tay bulls. UM. I remember confronting
a manager about it and UM about like, you know,
why am why do I have so many tables? And
why am I working so much harder than my other
coworkers And it was kind of like dismissed. So UM.
(29:15):
I think basically everything she has said is absolutely true,
and it is not an environment that is meant to
to help women, and certainly not an environment mental help
women of color succeed. Frankly, I'm sorry that all of
that happened to you. After the break we need to
get to the bottom of why is this ship still
(29:37):
happening and keeping people from getting them. I'm sorry for yelling.
I don't mean to raise my voice at your ladies.
That's not I'm not raising my voice at y'all and
raising my voice it's fake fucking politicians. Beyond the scenes.
I'm perfectly calm. We'll be right back beyond the scenes.
Were around and third and hit it for home. We're
talking some minimum wage now. The government has decided workers
(30:01):
ain't worth the dam, which means that the employers have
decided that the workers ain't worth the dam either, which
means the customers have decided that the workers ain't worth
the dam. Stephanie sorrow. How do we stop this? And
why is it still going on? I would imagine in
(30:23):
twenty that there's probably been a couple of laws, of referendums,
of suggestions in the White House email box saying hey,
can I get a couple of dollars please? Why has
this not changed? Sorry? Like, why is this still happening?
So first, I do want to say it's been a
long time in coming, and I want to tell you
(30:45):
who why it's not been happening, But there's something very
hopeful we should start with. We are experiencing this historic moment.
Our members are calling it. It's not even a great resignation,
it's a great revolution where workers for the first time
since emancipation are standing up, walking out, demanding I'm not
gonna work unless I get a full minimum wage. And
(31:08):
it is in response, we're seeing thousands of restaurants for
the first time ever having to raise wages from two
and three and four. We're tracking restaurants paying fifteen restaurants
and we're seeing some restaurant keepe Cod paying fifty bucks
an hour plush because they cannot get staff any other way.
So we're in a very hopeful moment. But it brings
(31:30):
us to the question of why has it taken so long?
What has what's blocked us all these years? And it
answers very clear, very simple. After emancipation, restaurants, as I said,
wanted the ability to hire newly freed slaves, and in
nineteen nineteen they actually formed an association to keep it
so forever, called the National Restaurant Association. We call it
(31:55):
the other n r A. Uh. It's been around for
a hundred years, arguing we shouldn't have to pay our
workers because you do. Basically, they won this in nineteen
thirty eight. They won it in every every time the
minimum wage goes up, they make sure it stays low,
and they make sure tipped workers are always left behind.
(32:15):
You all remember Herman Kaine, Well, Herman Kaine exactly exactly.
Herman Kaine was the head of the National Restaurant Association
back in nineteen ninety six when Clinton was president, and
he struck a deal with Congress saying, sure, you can
go ahead and let the overall minimum wage go up
(32:36):
as long as tipped workers are frozen forever. And so
in nineteen ninety six we saw the wage for tipped
workers stay. It went up the last time in it's been,
you know, ridiculous thirty two years since this wage has
gone up. We have mothers and daughters who have worked
for two dollars and thirteen cents and our through their
(32:57):
whole careers. And it's because basically Congress, part Democrats and
Republicans have struck deals with the National Restaurant Association basically
agreeing that every time the minimum wage goes up, these workers,
these women get thrown under the bus and and here's
the thing. So New York Times has just reported that, um,
(33:19):
you know information that we shared with them that actually,
all these years they've spent so much money the Restaurant
Association funding you know, contributions to elected officials candidates that
then vote with them, that then say, okay, fine, we'll
leave the tip to workers. Out turns out all of
(33:40):
that money, instead of coming from the member corporations that
drive the other n r A like Applebee's and IHA
and Olive Garden and Chili's, turns out that all of
that money actually comes from low wage workers who are
funding their lobbying without knowing it. So if two thousand
nine it was the last time to or a minimum
(34:00):
wage went up and tipped workers were left at two
dollars and thirteen cents an hour, and the Restaurant Association
decided after two thousand nine that that was it. They
never wanted to let the minimum wage go up again,
and they certainly didn't want tipped workers to ever go up.
So they basically went to the states, the four states
with the largest restaurant industries California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and
(34:22):
they got bills passed in each of those states requiring
workers to take food handler training and pay for it. Now,
it just so happens at the Restaurant Association owns the
monopoly company that provides food handler training called Serve Safe.
And so millions of workers each year are forced to
(34:43):
take this training. And guess where that money goes. It
goes to the Restaurant Association and they turn around and
use it to lobby against those same low wage workers interests.
So low wage workers are funding the lobbying of the
other n r A to the tune of eighty million
dollars a year god, and that lobbying is then used
(35:03):
to get both Democrats and Republicans to agree that fine,
every time the wage goes up, we leave the tipped
workers out because those poor restaurants. Everybody else can be
forced to pay the minimum wage, but those poor restaurants
have to be left out. They don't have to pay
the minimum wage even though everybody else does. So it's
a nefarious history that finally, finally, we are reaching a
(35:26):
moment of victory because workers in the millions are finally
saying enough is enough, regardless of what you do. You
you know, I want to say the words elected officials
and Restaurant Association. We're not putting up with it anymore,
So try to staff your restaurants without How do you
Stephanie take everything that she just said and boiled that
(35:48):
down into like thirty seconds and a joke, like talk
a little bit like I mean, it's silly, but I'm serious.
Like talk a little bit about and something starts making
you upset when you start peeling back the layers of it.
Talk a little bit about the creative difficulties and deciding
what to keep within a piece versus what to leave
(36:10):
on the cutting room floor, because there's so much that
you can pack into a story, but we only have
so much time on the actual Like on the mother
Ship show, I'm saying, yeah, I think what I try
to focus on, Um, you know we're talking earlier about
the most shocking things. So the things that affected me
immediately from the story, those are the things that absolutely
(36:31):
need to go into the story. And then and thinking
about that, I try to think about, Okay, so what
is the logic behind the the villain or the perpetrator
of this wrong, what is their mindset? And then trying
to think about like the nuggets within the story that
emphasized that because that's where the humor is. Like we're
(36:53):
clearly society is always punching down, is already punching down
at these workers, so they're not the subject of the humor. Obviously,
it's going to be the people that are doing things
like what sorry just described to me. You heard me,
I was like, like the entire time because it's just
so ridiculous. So that's where the humor is. So not
only am I not going to pay you, but I'm
(37:14):
going to use your the very little money I already
give you to fund me to continue to not pay
you like that is It's like I don't want to
just do you wrong. I want to do you just dirty.
And that's the humor. I don't know about you too,
but I'm inspired to own a restaurant all of a sudden.
(37:35):
It's not like a good ass hustle to me. Really.
The thing that's always funny to me. Also when across
particularly in the United States, whenever there's an issue of oh,
there's not money, you know, the the big wigs always
him and hand, there's no money, there's not enough money.
We can't do it because we can't afford it. There's
always money. They always find the money. Okay, So like, yeah,
(37:57):
to your point, all these rushstaurants that fought us for
so long on this issue, so many of them are
now paying this because they can't get staff to come
back any other way. So you're right, they found the money. Look,
there have always been amazing small business We have an
association of two thousand, five hundred small business restaurants that
are actually leading the way on this issue but actually
(38:19):
agree with us. We need to pay everybody a full
wage because it's better for the bottom line. Guess what
workers do when they're paid more, They actually provide us
with better service. They don't leave, they don't quit, you know,
they stay longer, they're loyal. They provide better food and
better service, and they go spend it in our economy,
they go spend it in restaurants. So there are plenty
(38:40):
of great restaurant owners that have always done this, and
now with this great revolution, thousands more restaurants are following
their lead. Because look, even Applebee's Applebee's Applebee's, which fits
this and leads this, you know, National Restaurant Association, Guess
what they're doing. They, like everybody else, have to pay
(39:01):
more so they're starting to pay fifteen in Utah and
Nebraska and West Virginia, and we saw them paying twenty
dollars an hour in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania and um and yet
they're still paying two dollars and thirteen cents in Birmingham
and three dollars in Detroit. So you tell me what's
different between the states I mentioned and Birmingham and Detroit,
(39:24):
because and it's very clear in New York, Applebee's is
offering fifteen to workers in Manhattan and ten dollars to
workers in Harlem and the Bronx and the Queens. So
they are having to raise wages, but they will stick
to their racism to the very last, you know, moment,
pick and choose. Help me to understand the difference when
we're talking about the bigger corporations that have money and
(39:46):
shareholders and investors, and they can move around move around money.
The restaurant industry, if we're just talking at the mom
and pop level, it's very volatile. It's still an industry
where most of the restaurants fail within the first year.
I think it's months, was the last statistic that I heard.
So what do you say, it's a route to the
counter that without the sub minimum wage that people with
(40:09):
disabilities wouldn't have as many employement opportunities because of the
A d A Act. Or if I just run my
little barbecue hud and you're gonna make me pay my
service ten dollars an hour, but now I got to
raise my menu prices and customers when they find out
who they're gonna stop to. I don't know why I'm
talking like that, Stephaniely it's a Mississippi barbecue hood, but
(40:34):
this idea as a restaurant owner, Okay, I want to
pay them more, but if I do, I have to
change my whole business model. I might have to fire
two servers. Like, is there any validity to that counter
argument to raising some minimum wage? Look, the validity comes
from the Restaurant Association telling these small mom and pop
(40:56):
businesses for years this is the only way to do it.
If you pay more, you're going to go out of business.
They terrify them, so I we feel for their fear,
but the fear is not based on reality, because the
truth is, we have helped thousands of small business restaurants
make this transition profitably. There are ways to do it.
(41:17):
We have actually a calculator that helps restaurants put in
their menu prices and staff size. We show them how
to make the adjustments profitably. So many restaurants, thousands have
just done it. Roy there are restaurants right. I can
give you a list of over fifty restaurants in Mississippi
that are currently paying a full minimum wage with tips
on top, because so many restaurants have had to move
(41:38):
in this direction in order to recruit staff. So what
we say back to small business employers is, we know
you've been told that it's impossible or really hard, that
you're gonna have to lay people up, but it's just
not true. And what is your option right now? No staff,
You're not gonna have enough staff to fully operate unless
you make the change. Here's how you get how so
(41:58):
many other restaurants have done it profitably. Okay, but if
I run the mom and pop barbecue spot, and this
doesn't necessarily compare to some minimum wage, but it's it's
part of the larger conversation about the restaurant industry. When
we talk about the fight for fifteen and all of
the fast food work is gone. I want fifteen dollars,
and then the restaurant industry going cool, here's your fifteen dollars.
(42:19):
Half of you're fired, and now we're gonna put in
self service Kiosk touch screens and everybody. Do you think
what's happening in the adjustments that have happened in the
fast food industry with the fight for fifteen is used
to help fuel the fear to control the independent restaurants
that are still dealing with the minimum wage. We're not
wanting to increase our sut minimum wage. That's definitely the
(42:42):
argument and the fear for sure, But um, it is not.
It's not actually born out to be the truth. Actually,
Roy the states that have raised wages and ended some
minimum wages have actually higher job growth rate, So fast
food workers have not been replaced by chios overwhelmingly. There
might be one or two places where you might see that,
(43:04):
but if you look at data, the states with the
highest wages have the largest restaurant industries and the greatest
job growth rates in the restaurant industry. Why again, it's
because in those states those fast food workers are doing
guess what, They're going out and they're spending it, and
so the industry grows more. Restaurants can survive if more
workers are able to take their families to eat, we forget.
(43:26):
This is the largest industry in America. Means it's the
largest population of consumers who will eat out in restaurants.
And by the way, tip better, because you both know,
after having lived on the tipman and wage, you're gonna
tip better. So they spend it, they eat out, they
tip better. They're better customers. Frankly, uh, and so we
need to value them as customers. I do want to say,
(43:48):
because I know we're running out of time. We are
just experienced the most wonderful historic moment of victory on
this issue. Finally talk about the growth. Let's get some
good news was in here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, because all
of these fears you're lifting up, uh, you know, have
gone out the window, as workers have basically said enough
(44:09):
is enough. So as a result, we won. We won
in Michigan and d C. Michigan just went from three
dollars for tipped workers to twelve dollars an hour, and
d C just went from five dollars to sixteen seventy five.
And we've got bills and ballot measures moving in over
a dozen states this year and next year, all because
workers have reached their limit and they're saying enough is enough.
(44:31):
You have to stop listening to the restaurant Association. In fact,
you have to stop listening to the restaurant Association because
they're using our money to make their arguments part and part. Okay,
last question, then, what can we do other than tip better?
What can the average person do to support workers much?
Yeah for asking that question. The number one thing is
(44:55):
to right now go to our website. There's a tool
on our website one fair Wage dot org that allows
you to click to send your legislator a message saying
stop taking money from the restaurant Association is taken fraudulently
from low wage workers, and support passing one fair wage
a full minimum wage with tips on top. That's number one.
(45:15):
But also if you go to high Road Restaurants dot org,
you'll see a list of restaurants that are currently offering
a full minimum wage with tips on top, thousands of
them in every state. We want you to definitely support
those restaurants. More importantly, wherever you eat, show that list
on your phone to the owner manager at the end
of your meal, say hey, I don't see you on
this list. I love eating here. I love the food,
(45:38):
I love the service, but I want to see you
on this list of restaurants paying a full minimum wage
with tips on top. Otherwise I don't want to keep
supporting a restaurant that's taking my tips and using it
to pay the workers wages. I want my tips to
be on top of a wage, not rather than instead
of a wage. Need you to communicate every time you
eat out, not to the server they don't have power,
(45:58):
not to the any of the workers, but to the
manager owner at the end of your meal and say
I need to see you pay a full wage because
you know I think when I tip, it should go
to the workers on top of a wage, not instead
of a wage. Well, I wish that we had more time,
because if we did, I would have asked you a
question about all of these other random places where I
(46:22):
know you're getting a full wage and then you can
just put out a homemade tip jar up And it
was a non service based industry. I understand service base
like cold Stone Creamery, cool, but come on, man, this
is an oil change spot I have. I'm here to
buy a printer. Why is there a tip jar next
(46:43):
to the cash registered to place to buy the printers.
I'm not going to all the companies want what the
restaurant industry has. The more they Apple pay makes us
tip everywhere, the more and more companies are gonna say,
well they get tips, I can pay a subminimum. We've
got to get rid of the subminimum so it doesn't
keep growing into every free freaking industry. We'll get tipped everywhere. Well,
thank you all, so so much. That's all the time
(47:06):
we have for today. Thank you to our guess, Stephanie
and Sarud for going beyond the scene and also tip
on carry out orders. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond
the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.