The Unhappy Worker

...and the political battle for their support

22 October 2024

Hallo from leafy Boston where I’ve just landed to give a speech about the future of work and to take the temperature of America as it heads towards the final showdown of the election.

This protest board outside a restaurant caught my eye and I wanted to know more. What exactly is Question 5?

It turns out that it is a very specific law in the state of Massachusetts which is due to come into effect next month and which de facto replaces tipping with a gradually raised minimum wage.

But not everyone is happy. Because although there is an equalising interest here - both to raise standard pay which is often shockingly low and reliant on tips but also to extend tips to back room hospitality staff like kitchen cooks and porters - the losers as they see themselves are the front of house waiters.

I had a hunch this was somewhat connected to hierarchical feelings which go with heavy duty restaurant waitressing: the sense that front of house *is* the house and that tips should not be shared.

My server at Chart House in Boston Long Wharf confirmed this: “the kitchen, they have nothing to do with this” she told me (with no irony).

But what she did say - and I can well imagine this - is that in the end there will be less money to go round for people like her (a nursing student who works double shifts). Those tips can be substantial.

Arguments rage. Look at this in the Cape Cod Times: https://eu.capecodtimes.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/18/massachusetts-debate-ballot-question-on-tipped-worker-wages/75700590007/

It all goes to show how uneasy the alliance is between legislators trying to protect workers and those who feel the main benefit may go to: not back room people at all but the restaurant owners who can claim tax relief under the new arrangements…

BLAZING ROWS

I have arrived to brilliant balmy sunshine and those famous golden leaves of Autumn. But the blazing sunshine and leaves also serve as a metaphor for the arguments which continue to rage around workers’ rights - not just those who are not as easily unionised as others (eg hospitality workers) but those who are.

Here in American trade union membership is nowhere near its all-time highs https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/17/key-facts-about-union-members-and-the-2024-election/ and yet as Pew Research Center research shows the workers are being wooed by both the Democrats and Republicans alike:

Although as you might expect 6/10 union members support Kamala Harris, that leaves a hefty margin who support the Republicans.

Which may explain the Tik Tok coup of one Donald Trump donning overalls and serving fries in - where else - Mcdonald’s.

There’s a big clue to his real feelings in this move: Mcdonald’s is not unionised.

More from me soon and meanwhile, I do keep tipping.

HUNGRY FOR CHANGE

Finally, to continue the food theme, the latest episode of The Nowhere Office features both food and trade unions but from a UK perspective.

Fitting, really. Filing from Boston whose history has such rich and filling connection to England (see what I did there?!)

Here is The Nowere Office on Spotify:

OK that’s it from me. I have a city to explore.

More soon.

Julia