All across America, restaurant workers are delivering a shocking message to their understaffed employers: “I QUIT!”
Entertainment
If you’ve visited a restaurant lately and were told it would be an hour or more wait for a table (even though the restaurant was nearly empty), this story will come as no surprise to you. Restaurants are horrifically understaffed and unable to keep up with the rush of diners coming back to enjoy a night out following the pandemic. So, what happened??
Some establishments were left with no other alternative but to lay off or let go of restaurant workers when the pandemic forced them to shut down — and have not yet been able to rehire all positions they need to operate. However, some waiters, waitresses, bussers, dish-washers, and other restaurant workers have simply had it up to here with low pay, long hours, and rude diners and have chosen to call it quits rather than work another second in a the sweatshop-style system of a restaurant.
“People are just walking out in the middle of shifts,” one restaurant employee said. “[Hostesses who] seat the tables, the dishwashers, the bussers … they all walk out,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s any server who hasn’t been tempted to quit,” he added. “Especially right now.”
Everywhere you look, the dining experience is crumbling.
‘We are short-staffed,’ a local McDonald’s sign read. ‘Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to work anymore.’
‘We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience’ read the sign at a local Burger King that was closed in the middle of the day.
So, what’s going on here?
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson believes nobody wants to work anymore because the government has been far too generous with “free money” during the COVID crisis.
“The government is paying people more to not work than to work,” Carlson claimed. “So why would they work? Would you?”
However, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich disagreed and said he understands why restaurant workers are giving up.
“Instead of no one wants to work anymore, try no one wants to be exploited anymore,” Reich said.
Instead of: no one wants to work anymore. Try: no one wants to be exploited anymore.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) May 12, 2021
Could he be onto something?
When asked why they no longer want their jobs, some restaurant workers said they’ve simply had enough of being overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated and that this particularly stressful once-in-a-generation pandemic was a huge wake-up call. So, “rage quitting” among workers has become common after 15 months of living through the coronavirus.
Additionally, long-term trends in worker wages (which have been on the decline for years), as well as an antiquated tip system (where employers pay workers peanuts but tell them they’ll “make up the difference” in tips), is also to blame. During the pandemic, many restaurants were forced to offer delivery-only service and the trend has remained popular. Customers are now exclusively ordering take-out or delivery (instead of dining in), which means those once-promised “make up the difference” tips are non-existent.
Unfortunately, the problem of understaffed restaurants and overworked employees doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
.
“One of our first nights of reopening, some guy came to the bar and yelled at our manager. [He said] ‘you need to hire more staff,’ as if she could solve that problem right then, right there.” – Restaurant owner
.
According to a recent survey, more than half of restaurant workers who’ve quit said no amount of pay would get them to return. Or, in other words, the entire restaurant business model and its pay system needs to be redesigned and reinvented in order to survive.
In the words of one former restaurant employee: “When businesses offer higher wages, they will be able to attract more workers.” However, only time will tell.
Will the current restaurant system — including low pay and long hours for employees — survive a post-COVID world? Or does the entire system need to be demolished and recreated from scratch?
Vice: Something remarkable is happening in fast food establishments, retail stores, and restaurants across America. You may have seen photos of it go viral. You may have even experienced it in real life if you’ve dined at a Chili’s or Applebee’s and the hostess apologizes for extra-long wait times. “WE ALL QUIT, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE,” disgruntled employees posted in giant letters on a sign outside a Burger King in Lincoln, Nebraska earlier this month. “Almost the entire crew and managers have walked out until further notice,” Chipotle workers wrote in Philadelphia on a sign posted on the glass doors of their restaurant. “Closed indefinitely because Dollar General doesn’t pay a living wage or treat their employees with respect,” retail workers scribbled in Sharpie outside a Dollar General in Eliot, Maine, after the entire store quit en masse. In recent months, these mass resignations have been part of a national… Read more »