Staffing

New book reveals inequities faced by immigrant restaurant workers

A University of New Mexico sociology professor's recent work and upcoming book look at the inequities restaurant workers face both before and during the pandemic.

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July 30, 2020

A University of New Mexico Sociology professor's examination of the pandemic's effects on restaurant workers finds that while brands themselves are falling prey to the virus's effects on business, restaurant workers are often being decimated by the global virus's repercussions.

UNM Professor Eli Wilson examines race, class and gender issues among restaurant workers and recently published an e-forum with the University of California, Los Angeles, that puts the focus on COVID-19's fallout on restaurant labor.
He found that the pandemic's fallout, as experienced by what he called often undocumented restaurant kitchen workers, has been very different from that of front-of-the-house restaurant employees, who he said are often young, white, and middle class.

Wilson relayed that restaurant employees in the U.S. who haven't obtained the needed documentation from the government allowing them to work here have been unable to obtain any assistance through either the federal aid package passed into law or other means.

"Before the pandemic, the industry's millions of undocumented workers were already a largely invisible group employed mainly in physically taxing back-of-the-house jobs with low wages and few benefits," Wilson said in a university news release about his article. "Reduced work hours and widespread layoffs will push many to grapple with the inability to meet their family's basic needs and nowhere to turn for help but friends and relatives in equally precarious situations."

Nonetheless, even the front-of-house workers who are often in a better situation legally, are also reeling from what he called an "employment Armageddon" for almost 4 million servers, bartenders, baristas, hosts and cashiers. As the professor found, even if some restaurants can keep employees paid during the pandemic, many are losing a sizeable chunk of tip income in the huge loss of business and customers in most dine-in brands.

Just by way of example, he explained that in New Mexico, one out of every 10 workers is employed in foodservice, similar to the number nationally. But also in New Mexico, the "tipped minimum wage" is $2.35. Though that amount is set to grow to $3 an hour by 2023, the state serves as an example of how greatly such tipped personnel are being hurt when customers dry up for dine-in.

Wilson said the news is particularly bad for employees at higher-end full-service brands, which the numbers have shown are feeling the pinch the hardest among the restaurant community.

"Upscale, or 'white tablecloth', full-service restaurants are getting hammered right now, no question about it," Wilson said. "I suspect some did not partially reopen even if they could have last month, because margins on expensive perishable items such as steak and lobster do not make sense when you can only serve at max one-fourth to one-half of your regular dining room customers, and now that service is closed again.

"Fast food is managing a little better, for reasons of convenience, price, and the popularity of comfort foods during these stressful times."

Wilson said he believes New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had no choice when she mandated another round of indoor dining closures as of July 13, though he noted that the action may have been the last nail in the coffin for many operators that he said don't have the capital to wait.

"Restaurants hate this kind of induced volatility because, as you can imagine, labor and raw ingredients do not just turn off and on," he said. "These decisions are emotional and costly—not to mention a logistical nightmare—and I feel for everyone in the industry who is caught in the crosshairs right now… Very few restaurants were able to turn a profit based on outdoor dining and takeout business alone."

Perhaps worse still is that, in Wilson's view, even when the pandemic lifts and people can return to their past dining behaviors, restaurants will not necessarily rebound.

"There will be an aftershock in the form of a lack of consumer trust in returning to restaurants. The buzz and bustle inside a popular restaurant where workers are a blur of choreographed motion behind the bar and in the kitchen are still fresh in my mind, but it will be a long time until that level of business returns," he said. "I am optimistic that it will at some point because restaurants are crucial 'third spaces' in a disengaged world, but many current restaurants may not be around to see this day."

Wilson's first book, Front of the House, Back of the House: Race and Inequality in the Lives of Restaurant Workers, will be released this fall through NYU Press. The book is based on six years of ethnographic research in which Wilson personally worked in three different restaurants in Los Angeles to gain an insider perspective.