Diner's Guide Rates Working Conditions Inside Restaurants
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/12/03/143015230/diners-guide-rates-working-conditions-inside-restaurants
Summary
A new restaurants guide book for consumers was published by the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. This guide book is not for the plates. It is based on what the happening is inside the kitchen door. The 150 highest-grossing restaurants are in the book, not including world-famous chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks. The rate is decided by 5 categories: availability of paid sick days, opportunities for promoting within the company, whether or not the restaurant followed the ROC's sustainable practices, wages for tipped workers, and waged for non-tipped workers. In the terms of wages, the ROC United praises companies which pay at least $5 an hour to tipped employees and $9 per hour to non-tipped employees which the ROC considers the minimums as a liable income. A restaurant owner who received high scores says this is a good opportunities for consumers to know about the circumstance of restaurants. Because of gourmet guide books, consumers became to focus on only where the restaurant is, not who the cooks or dishwashers are. Generally, hosts and hostesses can be given a tip from consumers, but insiders, like cooks and dishwashers can rarely get a tip. Even paid sick leave are not paid for insiders well even though service persons are forced to be paid it. The number of restaurants in Washington D.C. whose workers should get the pay sick leave is increasing now, however, the owner says this law is not a complete one because it has a lot of loopholes.
My opinion
I had worked at couple of restaurants after my graduation. In Japan, the gourmet guide books are familiar to people to find good restaurants. And, I agreed with the new guide book because I also felt consumers who consider only foods increased during working. On the other hand, I could get enough salary, so I thought I was blessed with good circumstances. Interestingly, in Japan, cooks can get better salary than service persons because of their skillful jobs. Cooks in the U.S. faces severe circumstance, I thought.
Vocabularies
1)paid sick days
:noun
:a guarantee that employee can receive salary even if they have to be absent because of sick
:with pay
:I could get paid sick days while I was hospitalized.
2)loophole
:noun
:a means or opportunity of evading a rule or law
:escape
:Good lawyers know some loopholes in the laws.
Like other eaters, I was not interested in things happening inside of restaurants, but in tastes and services. As long as I was satisfied with food and services, I didn’t pay attention to any issues at the restaurant. Once, one of my friends working as server told me that his customers, who were assumed to be Asian tourists, didn’t tip him. He was very angry and explained to me why customers should leave a tip. In a sense, restaurant owners pass their financial burden to customers, but somehow customers also should understand the situation servers face.
ReplyDelete