“Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of American Restaurants” is a 30-page guide to working conditions in popular American restaurants, published by Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a worker-rights advocacy group. It tells you whether the staff at the restaurant you’re thinking of eating at gives its staff sick-leave, whether they are paid beyond the $2.13 minimum wage for tipped workers, and whether the restaurant has a policy of limiting women, immigrants and people of color to lower-paid “back of the house” jobs.
Working with students from Tulane University and the University of Cali-
fornia at Los Angeles, we asked restaurants about their practices with
regard to:a) wages for tipped and non-tipped workers;
b) paid sick leave and other benefits; and
c) opportunities for workers to move up the ladder.
We asked this information from all of our ‘high road’ restaurant partners
in our eight current affiliate cities and from the top 150 highest revenue-
grossing restaurants in America. Using the Restaurants & Institutions Top
400 list1, we identified the top 50 highest revenue-grossing restaurants in
each of the industry’s three segments.QUICK SERVE: fast food, delis, and any establishment without
waiter serviceCASUAL: full service restaurants with casual service
FINE DINING: higher-priced full-service restaurants2
Some restaurants did not provide us with all requested information. If any
of these restaurants–or any other in America–can provide us with this
information, we would be happy to update the Guide.
Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of American Restaurants (PDF)
(via The Pump Handle)