ASHEVILLE - With the restaurant industry facing a historic staffing crisis, topics like payscale are up for debate as service industry professionals hold the bargaining chips.
One particular topic has seen its share of scrutiny, and is the focus of a bill moving through congress: Should the subminimum wage stay or go?
In 43 states, tipped professionals, such as restaurant servers, are paid some form of the subminimum wage, or an hourly rate below the standard federal minimum wage.
InNorth Carolina, employers can pay $2.13 an hour to tipped employees as long as tips allow them to reach the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Advocates of ending the subminimum wage say forcing servers to rely on tips fortheir income furthers the inequity baked into the restaurant industry.
"It can lead to sexual harassment,gender discrimination and all of those things because you put so much control in somebody's hands," saidKatie Button, whose eponymous restaurant group includes Cúrate. "Putting the control on the customer about whether or not (a server) has money to feed the kids, pay the bills, to me it just doesn't feel right."
Button's restauranthas eliminatedthe subminimum wage and instituted tip sharing among all hourly non-management workers. It's a move she said has leveled the playing field for all workers.
That way, she said, when a customer decides to withhold tips, it's not going to make as much of a difference. "We're covering a very large portion of their income," she said.
Eliminating the subminimum wage isthe central focus of One Fair Wage,a national organization of more than 200,000 service workers,800 restaurant employersand dozens of organizations.
From feudal Europe to post-Emancipation America
According to One Fair Wage data, 45% of restaurant workers are people of color, but only 22% of people of color are employed in the highest paying front of the house positions in fine dining restaurants.
People of color who work in desirable positions can still face inequity. The data shows thatcustomers tip Black servers less, with Black women making the least.
That results in a $4.79 national race and gender wage gap between white male servers and servers who are Black women, the organization found.
Saru Jayaraman, the New York-based attorney and author who founded One Fair Wage, said that while tipping originated in feudal Europe, the subminimum wage is a purely American construct.
European aristocrats would tip servants a bonus on top of their regular wages, and Americans traveling to Europe brought the practice home as a way to flaunt wealth.
"Six states then passed bans on tipping because there was this notion that we are a democracy andwe reject this vestige of feudalism,"Jayaraman said.
But that changed post-Emancipation Proclamation (in 1863), when restaurant owners realized they could hire Black workers to labor for tips but no other pay, she said.
"That was the first time tipping had mutated anywhere in the worldfrom being a bonus like it always was to becoming replacement for wages,"Jayaraman said. "They thought this was the way to get free labor."
Meanwhile, the Raise the Wage Act, a bill currently moving Congress, calls for a $15 minimum wage and elimination of the subminimum wage.Though the legislation was struck from the CARES Act, it has a chance to pass as a standalone bill, said Jayaraman.
Detractors include theNational Restaurant Association, which found in a survey of 2,000 restaurant operators that a minimum wage hike would force nearly all to increase menu prices, with many of the surveyed operators saying they would cut jobs, benefits or add employee-replacing technology.
But Jayaraman said a minimum wage hike could likely ease one of the biggest problems restaurants are facing coming out of the pandemic: staffing.
Not a staffing shortage; it's a wage shortage
Based on a national pool of over 2,800 surveys of food service workers conducted from Oct. 20, 2020-May 1, One Fair Wage asserts that it's not a staffing shortage that's the problem; it's a wage shortage.
- Of 53% of workers considering leaving their restaurant job, more than 76%said the decision was based on low wages and/or tips.
- Mothers were more likely to report leaving restaurant jobs than other workers.
- Mothers were also more likely to report tipdecreases during the pandemic (91% versus 86%) and that their tips have decreased by half or more (73% versus 67%).
- 78% of respondents said having a full, stable, livable wage would keep them at their job, nearly 30% morethan the second most popular factor: paid sick leave.
Half of female restaurant workers said overall levels of unwanted sexual comments had increased post-pandemic.
"There is no policy solution as effective in cutting sexual harassment (in the restaurant industry) as One Fair Wage," Jayaraman said.
Harassment is one key reason Ruth Rapp, one of the hospitality professionals behind the newly formed local Restaurant Opportunities Center branch in Asheville,also hopes to see the subminimum wage eradicated.
When restaurant customers are in charge of wages, it reinforces the notion of the customer-employee relationship as one of subservience, which can be demoralizing, she said.
"Though you can be rewarded for your service, as a tipped employee you can also be demeaned with no recourse and no reason," she said.
Customers' customs surrounding tipping are also hard to break, she said. Her own family tips 10% as a matter of habit, and nothing Rapp says can change their minds.
"The only person who suffers in this whole equation is the tipped employee," she said. "The psychology of someone rating your performance with your pay is insanely stressful."
Still, she said, ROC Asheville's aim is not to abolish tips altogether.
"If people want to tip you for a service, absolutely, but you should also be getting paid for providing that service for a business," she said.
"We believe in one fair wage," she added. "Tips aren't mandatory when you go out to a restaurant anyway. I don't know why the hardware store has to pay employees but a restaurant doesn't."
From one fair wage back to tips
Blue Dream Curry House, open for six years on Patton Avenue, early on adopted a flat pay rate for all employees of $12.50 per hour. Tips were at that time discouraged and instead built into the menu price structure.
That meanta dishwasher on his or her first day made the same hourly wage as a new server, with opportunities for pay increases.
Servers liked the stability, but the model changed when the staff decided they were leaving money on the table by not accepting gratuity, according to co-owner James Sutherland.
"To compromise, we brought the subminimumwage back but guaranteed a living wage rate," he said.
Just Economics, which certifies local businesses paying a living wage, says workers in Buncombe County must make $17.30 per hour, or $15.80 with employer-provided health insurance, to make ends meet.
Now, Sutherland said, his staff are free to reap the benefits of tourists who want to show off with big tips. Should a server fall short of the living wage, Blue Dream makes up the difference.Hourly non-tipped workers also earn at least a living wage.
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Sutherland said ushering tips back in was a way to help his staff thrive, even if he's fundamentally opposed to the post-slavery roots of the subminimum wage.
Guaranteeing a living wage is not cheap; payroll generally makes up about 40% of restaurant expenses. But withworkers fleeing the industry in droves, it takes money to make money, Sutherland said.
Just as grocery stores were overwhelmed aseating and buying habits shifted in the beginning of the pandemic, restaurants are feeling the return of that pendulum swing.
With many workers overwhelmed, the industry has to change its approach, which means everything from offering employee benefits like mental health care to pay structure flexibility, Sutherland said.
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Also, he added, "automation" need not be a dirty word. "It doesn't mean you're not hiring people; it means the people you've hired have an easier job," Sutherland said.
Blue Dream now uses software that allows in-house customers to order fromtheir phones, which helps take pressure off overburdened servers and givesthem more time to do what they do best: sales.
Not yet ready for a switch
It's not hard to find other servers, particularly in many of Asheville's independent restaurants, who like the model as it standsand would not prefer a flat wage or to share large portions of their tips.
Michael Parker, a server at the Grove Park Inn's Sunset Terrace, is one who prefers to base his paycheck on managing the guestexperience. "I need to sell," he said. "This concept isn't odd."
Agood server is like a luxury car salesman, andParker can steer customers toward upgrades like the $38 lobster tail to accompany their prime filet mignon.
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"We're not just order takers, we're salespeople, and our sales help keep restaurants open," he said.
Breanna Horne, a server at Chestnut, said she often was undertipped when she worked at the Olive Garden, but that the experience helped her grow into the professional she is today."It gave me the skill set to work at a better restaurant and build from there," she said.
Horne makes the subminimum wage at Chestnut, and she views it as a challenge to work harder, for which she's often well rewarded by her customers. She said she'd prefer not to institute a policy of tip sharing.
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"It's a feeling of connection and earning purely based on what I did,and I just feel like switching that would take away from the feeling of being rewarded by that single table," she said. "Serving is very personal to me."
Server Eric Poage is of a similar mind, and left a restaurant where servers arepaid more than the subminimum wagebut required to share a large portion of their tips. He declined to name the venue, but said he left for fear his pay would drop.
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Now, he's working at Jargon in West Asheville, where locals make up the majority of the clientele.
"Locals tip better knowing they'll come back, and they want to know they'll get taken good care of and be known for being a good tipper," he said.
In lieu of a large-scale industry overhaul, customers will just have to understand gratuity is part of the dining experience for now.
"If you're going out not just for sustenance but for an experience, and you're being waited on personallyin a higher-end restaurant, expect to leave 20% for all the extra care you're given," Poage said. "Thatexperience is unfortunately not worked into the price of the food. It's on the side in America."
Considering the dishwasher
But fine-dining restaurants such as those and Button's Cúrate aren't the norm, saidJayaraman.Across the board, tipped workers suffer from nearly twice the poverty rate and use food stamps more than the rest of the U.S. workforce, One Fair wage data shows.
Button said the conversation surrounding ending the subminimum wage and instituting tip-sharing at her restaurant is about equity for all, including some of the lowest paid positions.
When the restaurant first opened in 2011, dishwashers were starting at $13 per hour, the living wage at the time, or $27,000 a year full-time. Servers and bartenders could bring home twice that much or more.
According to the latest data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual mean wage for dishwashers in Asheville is now $24,120, while for cooks it's$26,190. The annual mean for serversis$20,980, which could be misleading, as not all serversreport all of their tips.
Though it's not as visible of a job, the hot and dirty work of a high-performing dishwasher is crucial to any restaurant's operations.
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"We cannot provide the customer service and the type of food we offer without our entire team," Button said. "And we never felt great following this broken tipping model, which created this giant disparity."
Prior to 2018, a restaurant had to ensure its tipped employees retained at least 80% of their tips. That guidance changed in 2018 and, if an employerpays tipped professionals at least a full minimum wage, tips can be shared among staff.
Still, it was hard to make any sort of switch midstream, Button said.
"But when the pandemic hit and we closed, and after we laid everyone off, a lightbulb went off," she said.
Now servers make an hourly wage plus tips, and divide a portion of what they bring in amongst the staff. Servers still retain the largest portion of tips, but cooks, hosts and dishwashers still get a slice.
That's helped even out the playing field, but not everyone is thrilled with the new model. Button said some say she's subsidizing back of the house pay with server tips. Some servers have left.
"I know that in the heart and values of the community, and I see it in the audit what employees are making, I know we made the best decision for people in this area who work for us, and therefore we're never going back," she said.
What's happening at Cúrate is not unusual,Jayaraman said.
"There are thousands of restaurants switching to this model now because they can't get workers to come back without it," she said.
The momentum, she said, is on the side of a shift in industry pay.
"And with this bill in Congress, let's hope we end this legacy of slaveryonce and for all," she said.
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Mackensy Lunsford has lived in Asheville for more than 20 years, and has been a staff writer for the Asheville Citizen Times since 2012. Lunsford is a former professional line cook and one-time restaurant owner.
Reach me:mlunsford@citizentimes.com.
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