Pause the Cheerleading to Support Food Workers
As I wrote about before, the market cannot fix the broken food system, only policy can do that. Over the past year, the pandemic laid bare the numerous painful ways that food workers are exploited, from farms to meatpacking plants to restaurants. And many of these workers paid the ultimate price with their lives.
The plant-based foods industry and its advocates have been largely silent about these injustices. It’s time for that to change. It’s depressing to watch all the cheerleading for expansion of plant-based food options in retail and restaurants while so many workers at those same outlets are suffering.
Here are two concrete policies that will make real world change for the people who often go overlooked because they are behind the scenes flipping your (plant-based) burgers.
Raising the minimum wage to $15
It’s always shocking to me that the federal minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour. It’s been stuck at that rate since 2009, when it rose from $6.55. Prior to 2007, the federal minimum wage was stuck at $5.15 for ten years! If the minimum wage were tied to productivity, it would have been over $24 in 2020. This is another way of saying, the rich are getting richer off the backs of poor people.
Then there is how far your paycheck goes, which is not very. And you can afford less each year the wage is not indexed to inflation, so workers are effectively getting a pay decrease. The 12 years since the last federal increase is the longest lag ever. (You can see this excellent FAQ here.)
While over half the states have raised the minimum wage over the federal floor, about 28 percent of workers still make less than $15 an hour.
A living wage should not be a crapshoot based on where you live or who you are.
Sadly, women of color suffer disproportionately from these slave wages. According to the Washington Post: “Black and Hispanic women are more than twice as likely as White men to fall into this low-wage category, and their share of the low-wage workforce has increased.”
Have you heard of the sub-minimum wage?
Even more shocking is that the federal sub-minimum wage (also referred to as the “tipped minimum wage”) for workers in service industries is only $2.13. I will say that again in words and bold it, so you don’t miss it: two dollars and thirteen cents. The concept is that workers "make up" the difference in tips. But that is never guaranteed.
This means that workers in restaurants and bars make varying wages depending on factors out of their control, such as how busy their workplace is any particular night and how generous the patrons happen to feel. Imagine if your salary varied from week to week how stressful that would be? Or if you were “on-call” with variable hours.
States vary widely on whether they follow this ridiculous system of making workers depend on the kindness of strangers to get paid. (You can see where your state falls on the roulette of wages here.)
Of course, during the pandemic, food service workers have been among those hit the hardest. And even if they are lucky enough to keep working, they have the added stress of becoming public health enforcers, often subject to outright abuse. (This has been true of retail workers too, with the results even turning violent and deadly at times.)
But even in normal times, the sub-minimum wage is insane and downright dangerous, especially for women. A recent study by One Fair Wage showed that in states with the sub-minimum wage, waitresses were more likely to be sexually harassed, by both managers and patrons. The entire eye-opening report is worth the read.
To stop this legalized form of worker exploitation, a measure is pending in Congress called the “Raise the Wage Act” that would abolish the sub-minimum wage for service workers and raise the minimum wage for all workers to $15.
What you can do
Support the organization, One Fair Wage. It was started and is led by the tireless restaurant worker advocate, Saru Jayaraman. I have been in awe of her work for many years now. She is also director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. After 9/11, along with displaced workers, she co-founded the Restaurant Opportunity Center, which propelled a national movement.
I have personally donated to the legislative arm of One Fair Wage. You can donate to either their C-3 arm (for a tax-deductible donation) or to the C-4 arm for lobbying. This page lists the options for donating. They need all the help they can get.
The potential impact on food workers would be significant. For example, a $15 an hour wage would mean 42 percent of grocery workers would get a raise while 64 percent of food preparation workers would see their earnings rise by $5,800 annually.
Strengthening unions
Unions have long played a vital role in helping to ensure that workers are treated fairly. But of course, many employers are hostile to worker organizing and will go to great lengths to prevent unions from forming. This was recently underscored by the heartbreaking loss in the union drive at an Amazon facility in Alabama. (The union alleges that Amazon engaged in numerous illegal tactics, big surprise.)
Federal legislation dubbed the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize) has already passed the House and is pending in the Senate where it faces an uphill battle.
The bill would strengthen union organizing in several ways including:
Protect strikes and other protest activities.
Make it easier to bargain.
Help strengthen protections for workers forming a union.
Prevent the misclassification of workers as independent contractors.
While many powerful corporate interests are lined up in opposition, even conservative-leaning Democratic Senator Joe Manchin just announced his support.
What you can do
Many food workers are organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which is in strong support. Some groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America are organizing phone banks to call senators to ask them to pass it.
The restaurant industry, in the form of the “other NRA” aka the National Restaurant Association, has been blocking wage increases and other worker rights for decades.
The NRA is fighting both these critical worker measures right now. They make the usual sky-is-falling predictions for both raising the minimum wage, and passing the PRO Act.
Many restaurant chains that plant-based food companies sell into are part of this massive lobbying machine. So, before you celebrate the next expansion of plant-based burgers into Burger King or Starbucks or sit-down chains such as TGI Fridays or the Cheesecake Factory, ask yourself, is this company a member of the NRA, and are the workers earning a living wage? Are the women who work there being harassed?
Meantime, put the cheerleading on hold until workers gain the respect they deserve.
Michele Simon is a public health attorney, author, and founder and former executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association. (Full bio.) This is part a collection of articles called “Reality Check, Please”. Got ideas to share? Michele@MicheleRSimon.com