In collaboration with the UC Berkeley Food Labor Research Center and the UC Berkeley International Human Rights Law Clinic, ROC United released the report “Working Below the Line” on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2015.
The report finds the two-tiered minimum wage system violates several provisions of international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially for women and workers of color.
Under the current two-tiered wage system, federal law allows employers to pay workers who earn tips a subminimum wage of $2.13 an hour. As a result, several international human rights standards are not met for these workers, including:
– An adequate standard of living and to fair compensation: Although international labor standards require states to enable workers to maintain a suitable standard of living and to “just and favorable remuneration,” federal law allows tipped restaurant workers to be paid less than the regular minimum wage. As a result, these workers are at least two times more likely to live in poverty than the general U.S. population. “Wage theft” and other wage violations by employers is also a significant problem.
– Protection from discrimination based on gender and race: Sexual harassment as well as gender and racial discrimination abound across the restaurant industry. One investigation concluded that workers in food services accounted for 37 percent of all claims of sexual harassment with the federal government during a 10-month period in 2011. Furthermore, workers of color in restaurant industry are concentrated in the lowest-paid “front and back of the house” occupations such as cooks, dishwashers, bussers, and runners while non-Hispanic whites are disproportionately found in higher paid “front of the house” positions like wait staff and managers.
– Health & Medical Care: Access to affordable basic and preventive healthcare is beyond the reach of many tipped restaurant workers. A 2011 survey of over 4,000 restaurant workers found that 90% did not have access to health insurance through their employer.