Tipped minimum wage debate momentum could extend to other solutions

Debate over the merits and drawbacks of various minimum-wage structures has dominated local political conversation for weeks, if not months. But regardless of the Initiative 77 election outcome and the fate of the tip credit, issues of inequality and harassment in the restaurant industry won’t go away overnight.

The DC Line polled the advocates behind the ballot measure for ideas on solutions that can be implemented to address these issues whether Initiative 77 succeeds or not. (When asked the same question, members of the D.C. Council either declined to comment or failed to respond in time.)

Here’s what the respondents said.

• Increase diversity in workplaces, one by one. Advocates for Initiative 77 argue that people of color are often found more in the lower-level segments (busing and kitchen duty instead of serving) of the fine-dining world or at casual and fast-food restaurants. That unequal footing can lead to mistreatment and a dearth of opportunities.

In California, Restaurant Opportunities Center United worked with Race Forward and the Center for Social Inclusion to “desegregate” restaurants by identifying people of color and then helping restaurateurs revise their hiring, promotion and training practices to be more inclusive. According to Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of ROC, West Coast restaurants owned by superstar California chef Daniel Patterson went from 11 percent non-white employees to more than 60 percent at the end of a six-month process.

Out of that process also came a racial-equality toolkit that other employers can use to follow the same path.

• Ramp up enforcement of laws aimed at preventing employment discrimination. Nikki Lewis of the Health, Environment, Agriculture and Labor (HEAL) Food Alliance points to DC laws passed in 2014 and 2015 that explicitly prohibit wage theft and prevent employers from inquiring about applicants’ criminal records prior to a conditional employment offer (known as “Ban the Box”). The District also requires that all employers, including those in the service industry, offer paid sick days to its employees.

“You can still go into any business and more than likely a worker says that they don’t have paid sick days,” Lewis said. Other policy changes, such as a legislated minimum wage hike, might escape some employees’ notice, and employers can exploit that ignorance, she said.

The problem, in Lewis’ mind, is that the DC Department of Employment Services — run by a mayoral appointee — is in charge of stimulating local business growth and workforce development in the city, in addition to overseeing the city’s existing workplaces. Ideally, Lewis said, the agency would splinter into two, with a Department of Labor serving as a centralized advocate for workers.

• Vote for progressive electoral candidates — or become one. The long-term solution to problems perpetuated by a flawed system is to change the system itself, argues Jose Oliva, co-director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, a coalition of worker-based, food industry-focused organizations including ROC United and 30 others.

“People can complain and advocate and organize all they want,” Oliva said. “If they’re not actually ruling, if people are not in positions of power, if we just continue to elect billionaires into office, then these problems will continue to be what they are.”