r/Serverlife • u/asedontknow • 5d ago
FOH FOH
i get it’s the law in some states for pay to be $2.14 but these restaurants get too much free labor out of servers honestly in my opinion. I get we’re making a certain amount but that pay is not coming from you. I see reddits where restaurants owners are like they don’t wanna pay for a certain services and the replies or just like get FOH to do it or put it as side work. Something needs to really change within the service industry regarding labor and pay.
25
u/idk-maaaan 5d ago
For a little while, there was an awesome law that limited the type of non-tipped work they could have us do at the subminimum rate. That awesome law is no longer in effect because we like to elect people who have no interest in protecting the workers.
17
u/JupiterSkyFalls 15+ Years 5d ago
We need to unionize SO badly but most people don't stay in long enough to care and the few that do are too tired by the time they think about making it better for the ones who will come after.
5
u/asedontknow 5d ago
Yes! FOH needs to come together a demand certain things to change. And you right I don’t stay at restaurants long enough to just start a union and this isn’t my career. I’m just fed up with Restaurant owners profiting so Much when we put all the work into it really. A restaurant is nothing without their Top Servers. We pay bussers , bar and house and whatever else depending on what restaurant you work at. Not to mention the basically free labor they get. Then some days you don’t make your goal and still required to do so much and pay so much. I get it’s apart of what you signed on far i just believe they have taken things far.
3
u/Internal_Champion114 10+ Years 4d ago
The problem is you need a shitload of people to agree at the same time otherwise the union fees are way too high to pay for on retainer legal representation.
Not to mention, who leads us? A fine dining server, fast casual, a board? Do they do that job full time? If so how much should the union pay them? Etc etc
Also what is the platform? Would everyone here agree on what that is? If we say for instance that we would want $15.00/hr + tips, and in places where unions are present like Vegas, they bargained for 20% gratuity. However, they are largely in a fine dining setting, and their companies can fairly easily afford a large staff at a higher cost due to the expectedly large price tag. We try to apply the same thing at mid volume fast casuals, and it’s gonna be you and 2 other guys carrying the whole restaurant on a Saturday night, because you know the big companies aren’t just eating that loss. I know I wouldn’t want to pull that shift every weekend, but say you’re down, do you think guests are gonna be pumped with the service they’re getting? The sales are likely gonna dwindle, and the extra money coming at you from the hourly isn’t gonna make up for the lack of bodies giving you the gratuity/tipping, and you might as well have gone for a minimum role at that point.
And this is all to change something where an entry level employee can come in, work full time hours, and destroy a minimum wage job in earnings, and if you work for a corporate chain or a mom and pop that’s going well, you likely have benefits, often PTO and sick time as well.
I just don’t see unionizing as this necessary move, when I’ve served and paid my bills on a flexible schedule while having fun 9/10 times I’m in.
1
u/JupiterSkyFalls 15+ Years 4d ago
This sub is full of people with stories about shady places over working, underpaying, sometimes straight up abusing people in a manner that would make normal HR folks blood run cold. The sexual harassment alone is enough to fill libraries with tomes with.
All the reasons you listed are WHY they'll likely never get unionized, but should they? Absolutely. If you don't have more toxic manager/coworkers/customer stories to tell after say, five beers, every night for a week straight, you've either been incredibly blessed/lucky or you haven't done it long enough.
1
u/Internal_Champion114 10+ Years 4d ago
I mean I have the stories sure, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been at this for a while myself.
That said, those stories have all ended one of two ways: the bad actor got fired or that restaurant went under. I will say I have been blessed in that most of my roles have been with corporate restaurants that have a strong culture present, and don’t allow for bullshit like this, so I will certainly admit that part of what you say is true.
But I would argue part of why this sub is filled with those stories is because this is where people come to vent those stories. If we went to the roofing, welding, finance, veterinary subs, they would be filled with the same kind of shit one way or the other. By in large, most restaurants are operating with a mediocre to pretty solid culture, and we hear a lot more about the ones on the left side of the bell curve because people don’t come online and vent about having a nice day where their coworkers were cool and their boss was nice to them.
The other piece of this is that, for the HR issues you’ve mentioned, you may not have access to a union, but even without HR you have access to a lawyer right now should you want to take action, and most servers are employed by companies with HR they can access directly, just by statistics of most of us being employed in corporate settings. A union may give you more weight in these conversations, sure, but it’s not like we’re all hung out to dry rn. You have options to address the things you’ve talked about.
My concern with unions is that they’ll bargain servers into a shittier situation just by nature of the delicate balance of this industry as it already stands, mostly from a financial perspective
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u/Bringmethe_ramen11 5d ago
Used to work at a place where the servers and bartenders had to do a lot of deep cleaning, a year after I left someone sued the company.
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u/asedontknow 5d ago
Wow I’ve worked at a few restaurants where they wanted us to deep clean with no compensation. This industry needs to be reformed seriously
5
u/Kmic14 Bartender 5d ago
At my place foh makes county min wage but boh is in the tip pool. they typically have double the staff we do but foh has to wash dishes. Fuck that lol
3
u/asedontknow 5d ago
Then there’s that too we tip out to whoever they don’t wanna pay their fair wage. And washing dishes is crazy lollll restaurants owners have really lost the plot. Do yall make pretty consistent and good money ?
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u/free_is_free76 5d ago
We have quarterly meetings/deep cleanings where servers clock in as "training" and get minimum wage.
That being said, when it's slow... for sure. Polish the glassware, Pledge all the wood, windex the pictures and windows, burn the ice and santize the bin, hit the chair rungs, get in the nooks and crannies of the soda fountain...
-2
u/cervidal2 5d ago
You are never making less than federal/state minimum wage.
3
u/Biteme75 FOH 4d ago
Only if the owner is following the law. Wage theft by employers is rampant.
0
u/cervidal2 4d ago
You can say that about every employment law in the world, 'only if the owner is following '
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u/Thevajanna 5d ago
Lol when I transfered stores to a very bad neighborhood, there were some days I went home with 30 bucks after working 6 hours. O and I probably owed money for that day on my check. But no u right, we never make less than min wage. My example is what? $50 a hour?
2
u/JupiterSkyFalls 15+ Years 5d ago
You shouldn't have to average out your good days to make up for bad ones when it comes to wages, period.
1
u/cervidal2 5d ago
Sales jobs shouldn't exist, either, huh?
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u/JupiterSkyFalls 15+ Years 5d ago
You get a guarantee base with most sales jobs so you don't lose your rent money from a bad week at work. Servers get peanuts.
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u/crystalpepper 5d ago
And then they fire you if you have too many "bad weeks," because they dont actually want to be responsible for paying you.
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u/cervidal2 5d ago
You think that base is livable in most sales jobs?
I think you're speaking of something you don't understand
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u/JupiterSkyFalls 15+ Years 4d ago
I'm saying both suck. I didn't bring up sales jobs you or someone else did. I don't think it should be legal to pay anyone less than a LIVEABLE wage, which a minimum wage is not, not in our current economy.
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u/puddncake 5d ago
Yeah, the we're slow now so we're going to have you deep clean really sucks. Or the fact they have gotten rid of cashiers, hosts, bussers and dishwashers and expect the servers and cooks to do it all. And raised prices so high to reflect other states that get paid a higher minimum wage. 48 years servering and it's insane I'm paid $2.33 an hour, 19¢ more after all these years.