Restaurant Industry 'Rife with Sexual Harassment': Report

A stinging national report says that 90 percent of female restaurant workers dependent on tips report being subjected to some form of sexual harassment while on the job, and they say they’re pressured more often than minimum-wage employees to wear sexy, revealing clothing.

The workers’ group Restaurant Opportunities Center United said in its 34-page report, “ The Glass Floor: Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry,” that the problem is more pronounced in the so-called “ “$2.13 states” where wages for tipped jobs have a floor of $2.13.

In those states, tipped workers said they were three times more likely than peers in states paying minimum wage to be told by management to wear sexier, more revealing clothing or alter their appearance. Waitressing is often teenage girls’ first job, making the findings of sexual harassment “even more troubling,” the report said.

Related:

• Hugging Cashier ‘Creeps Out’ Customers, Loses Job

The report, which surveyed 688 current and former restaurant workers in 39 states, said “living off tips makes an industry already rife with sexual harassment even more dangerous.”

The report said that 37 percent of complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came them the restaurant industry. Of those complaints, 78 percent attributed the harassment to customers.

Saru Jayaraman, co-director and co-founder of the group that oversaw the survey, told USA Today that “women who have to live off of tips are subjected to the worst kind of sexual harassment” and the best way to alleviate it is to “eliminate the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers in the United States.”

Restaurants Opportunities Center United supports the Miller-Harkin Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour over the next three years, and the tipped minimum wage from $2.13 to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.

Currently, seven states require that all employees be paid the federal minimum wage before tips, 24 require they be paid above the federal minimum for tipped employees, and 19 allow them to be paid at the $2.13 federal minimum for tipped employees, according to the Department of Labor.

A spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association, which opposes the Miller-Harkin bill, was harshly critical of the report and said it was part of a “national, multi-million dollar campaign engineered, organized and funded by national labor unions,” CNN Money reports.

“No individual is making $2.13 an hour,” said the Katie Laning Niebaum, the spokeswoman. With tips figured in, most workers make an average of $16 per hour, and more experienced servers can earn as much as $22 per hour.

“Tips are not discriminatory,” she said, adding that half of all U.S. restaurants are owned or co-owned by women.

Tell Us:

• Do you support minimum wage (before tips) for restaurant workers? Why or why not?

(Photo via Shutterstock)

____________

Have a news tip? Email beth.dalbey@patch.com. Our platform has changed, so click here to learn how to post news, events and announcements; comment using Disqus; or add photos to the Instagram feed along the top of the home page.