Women make up 66 percent of all tipped restaurant workers, which means a federal minimum wage of $2.13 an hour, a rate that hasn't changed in two decades. That means they live in or near poverty at high rates and are vulnerable to harassment both from managers and coworkers and from the customers on whom they depend for the tips that account for most of their income. According to
a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Centers:
This dynamic contributes to the restaurant industry’s status as the single largest source of sexual harassment claims in the U.S. While seven percent of American women work in the restaurant industry, more than a third (an eye-opening 37 percent) of all sexual harassment claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) come from the restaurant industry.
The report found that 90 percent of women working for tips in the restaurant industry had experienced harassment, with much higher rates in states that have the $2.13 subminimum wage for tipped workers than in states that pay the full minimum wage.
According to one woman:
As a young woman who was dependent on tips, I felt a constant pressure to dress and act in ways I didn’t always feel totally comfortable with. This meant heels, make-up, close-fitting outfits—but it’s hard to maintain that ultra positive, friendly attitude the job requires while still standing up at the front for hours and hours in stilettos, usually doubling up on bussing tables for busier shifts. Especially as a woman, I couldn’t get tips if I didn’t embody a certain appeal. And a lot of the time my experience on the job was sort of demoralizing–I fielded a lot of sexist behavior, and it made me feel awful because I felt as if I could either have an income or a sense of self-respect.
It's crazy that the restaurant industry has been able to persuade lawmakers to preserve such a low wage for so many years. If there's a move to raise the minimum wage where you live, push to have tipped workers included.