New Report Spotlights Low Pay, Difficult Work Schedules, and Unaffordable Child Care for Moms in the Restaurant Industry
Posted on July 09, 2013 |
As the single mother of two young children, Losia Nyankale’s job is what keeps her family afloat. But between earning low wages and having no paid sick days, Losia is just one child care emergency away from losing her job. This pressure made it difficult for Losia to care for her mother when she suffered a stroke, and it forced Losia to return to work immediately after the birth of her second child—despite her doctor’s orders. Losia works long hours to be able to afford her basic living expenses and child care. And she often finds herself in an all-too familiar bind: if she picks up more shifts to earn a better living, the child care costs that she can barely afford now will rise, and she’ll have even less time with her family. Losia would like to go back to school to improve her situation, but the combination of low wages, lack of paid sick days, and lack of affordable child care, keep that dream from coming true for now.
For many years Teresa worked on call as a banquet server and had an extremely difficult time arranging child care at the last minute for her children because of her unpredictable schedule. She found herself turning down jobs or quitting jobs where she wasn’t able to arrange child care, even though she needed the income badly. Like Losia, Teresa was a single mom who often didn’t earn enough money to pay for care.
Losia and Teresa’s experiences are all too common, according to a report released today by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, with contributions from a number of partners including The National Women’s Law Center.
The report finds that the combination of low pay, lack of control over their work schedules, as well as schedules that are unpredictable and unstable, make it extremely difficult for mothers in the restaurant industry to afford and maintain quality child care. Child care is often particularly difficult to get during nonstandard hours, like nights and weekends, which are common shifts for many restaurant workers. And even when workers are able to find child care, their erratic work schedules can put them at risk of losing that care. Indeed many women whom ROC surveyed reported losing child care after employers unilaterally changed their schedules. Others had to pay hefty fines (up to $20 per minute!) for late pick-up after employers forced them to work late or changed their shifts without notice. On average, these mothers spent 35 percent of each paycheck on child care, and the vast majority did not receive any help in paying for this care.
The report offers several common-sense solutions to these growing challenges, such as raising the minimum wage and tipped minimum wage; increasing public funding for child care; making child care accessible during nonstandard hours and ensuring that subsidies can be used to support informal care; providing workers with greater control over their work schedules, and more predictable and stable schedules; and establishing a minimum standard for earned sick days. These changes are key to Losia, Teresa and millions of other working parents in the restaurant industry being able to access quality affordable child care and put food on the table for their own families.
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Comments
Tipped Min. Wage & kids.
I'm 46 yrs old. I raised my son by myself, his father TOTALLY disappeared for SEVEN STRAIGHT YEARS. It was beyond tough. The tipped federal min wage HAS to go up. It isn't even near below poverty level anymore, it is much worse given the cost of living & the high tip outs per shift. We are continually being made to do more inside the buildings of the establishments, cleaning, food prep, etc..that take time & attention away from serving & suffer because joe q public hasn't a clue as to what is going on in the industry & tips poorly if at all. If I am sweeping or bussing a table, I can't very well be refilling your beverage, now can I? Many rural areas still have a large percentage of people tipping 10% & that just doesn't cut it nowadays. I have never understood the lack in attitude & funds, issues, etc...with child care? They are the future consumers. If big companies want to project growth 20 years from now, it seems like they would realize that it is our kids they are projecting to bank off of & or on? Best think about that fact IMO. No strong healthy in all aspects kids growing into healthy adults, no strong businesses thriving. The lacking of empathy in society makes the job of serving now extremely difficult a few times per shift as compared to 30 years ago, I see it happening daily. The lack of patience in this everything at lightening speed culture I witness daily. It is as if people forget that food takes time to cook & food being cooked for hundreds at once by a few in one kitchen will take a little longer. People use to take time & enjoy going out to eat-99.9% of them did when I started in 1986. It is the exact complete opposite nowadays. Our society is becoming more sociopathic & letting multi-billion dollar profiting making corporate giants in the F&B industry pay literally nothing per hour while adding duties to our job codes more & more often, leaving the public to tip for service that we can not provide properly because we are cleaning the building or prepping a salad or blending a drink or running someone else's food or clearing a dish pit or taking out trash or searching for items in a huge walk in frig to cut up, etc...is BS-because the tips are getting worse because the public does not realize what is going on in the industry. I literally made more per shift in the late 80's & through the 90's. Between tip outs to support staff that are paid off of our backs & out our pockets, the industry does not pay min wage to support staff-the little we have left either & higher taxes, we don't get a paycheck. I don't call $8-$16 biweekly for right at as close to 80 hours as I can get any type of paycheck, would you? Now the reports are out about the skinny no good insurance plans that will be offered with the Obamacare employer health insurance mandate? NEWSFLASH-that is already how it is my friends & at $2.13 an hr/+ lowering tips & loss of business volume, I can't afford to eat or buy gas to go to work much-less think of health insurance good plan or bad plan! Add to this the credit debacle & my lack of income to debt ratio & medical bills always ruing my hope of attaining anything decent or safe to drive or live in & you will understand when I say, " I'm working to drop dead one day in America!" LITERALLY.......The sick pathology of the so-called leaders making policy & laws against workers in favor of the corporations & being bought by the lobbyist & ALEC-same as lobbying is killing us. We are dying. Wonder what the upper tiny percent of where all the money is at in this nation will do when there are no more consumers & the GDP is run into the ground? I hope our future generations can flip the script 380 degrees in the world of politics & Wall Street, because hence that is a HUGE part of the problem in this country. It will crash in the end all over high interest rates on the working poor because they a bad credit risk-Gee....wonder given the labor laws & pay for labor laws why? It will crash in the end over multi-multi-BILLION in profits was kept by a selfish few. How utterly avoidable it all is & very sad. Greed is not the word to use, the few I speak of are ignorant. Dumb as a bag of rocks is the saying where I come from. All the Ivy League Education to produce the makings of a few selfish ignorant, greedy fools that hoard money & leave this world like the rest of us do with nothing but our souls. Best of luck to them in the afterlife, they'll sure need it but there will not be enough luck to go round. All people, humans do better when edified & treated with dignity, from decent child care & housing & the like of things in life related to living in the modern world. Fair wages enable a more productive labor force & add revenue to our tax bases & promote the growth of the GDP. There are tons of studies that prove it. It is just amazing that big businesses will not operate with such knowledge gained by the factual studies, the corporatization of a nation to them seems more important I guess? Even with all the stress I endure on a daily basis, I'm glad I am me & NOT them.
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