Many of my old coworkers were still there. I was greeted and hugged by at least half the staff working that day. Everyone wanted to know what I was up to and how I was doing. As I commented to A at the time, it was a lot like returning to high school during your first year of college. All the old juniors are now seniors and they welcome you back like a returning hero for managing to get out of the hellhole. I even got caught up on gossip people in power leaving, who quit, and who's pregnant now (seriously, just like high school).
It was an interesting feeling, being able to tell everyone I was heading off to law school in a few short weeks. One person commented, "You got out. Maybe the rest of us can make it out, too." I really hope that hearing I'm going to law school gives at least a few of them the kick-start they need to break free of the restaurant cycle.
Here's the thing about restaurants and waiting tables: it is a miserable existence. Servers in Massachusetts make $2.63/hr plus tips. This is not unusual, either - across the States, there is some variation but generally server wages range from $2.13/hr to approximately $3.50 - which, no matter how you slice it, is well below the national minimum wage. Only a handful of states require restaurants to pay their waitstaff the state minimum wage; these states/territories tend to have higher minimum wages to begin with thanks to a higher cost of living. Legally, the restaurants in these places are not allowed to take a tip credit into consideration when paying wages. (See here for a full list of wages by state.) As a bonus, most servers have to tip out around 15% of their tips - generally 10% to their bussers and another 5% to the bar. In some places they must tip hosts and certain members of the line staff.
It's a striking difference from waiting tables in Europe. In France, for example, servers make the national minimum wage of €8.83/hr (approximately $12.25) and also a percentage of their sales. When you dine at a restaurant in France, there is generally a 15% fee tacked onto the cost of the meal, which is noted as servis compris. Literally, it means "service included." The fee is not optional. As for how much of that goes to the server, it varies from restaurant to restaurant but my best (and very modest) guess is that it averages out around 7.5%. A little goes to the cost of upkeep, the cost of uniforms and laundry, tip-outs to the hosts, bussers, bartenders, etc. While there may not be a lot of emphasis on the actual service, you can bet there's a lot of pressure on sales - because, simply put, the more money your meal costs, the more money your server makes.
Let's do a bit of math. I used to sell around $800 of food and drinks on an average night. While I generally made ~20%, we'll stick with the average 15%. That's $120, minus $12 to the busser and $6 to the bar, for a grand total of $102. For seven hours of work, this works out to $14/hr. The other $2.63 that servers theoretically make go, in actuality, entirely to taxes. I didn't see a single paycheck during my entire tenure at the restaurant - nearly two years. When your paycheck for a week, at best, might clear $80, you know you're not going to see that.
So, for a decent evening of work, a server might make about $100.
Let's assume the same sales numbers for a comparable restaurant in France. €800 in sales means there would be another €120 in servis compris to be distributed throughout the restaurant. About €60 of that goes to the server, plus another €62 in actual wages for the seven hours worked. In addition, most servers do get le pourboire in addition to everything else. This is generally whatever change is left - if a meal is €98.21, they might leave €100 to cover costs and le pourboire. It's not much, but over the course of an evening a server might make another €30 off the change left behind - and unlike the servis compris, this is not distributed to the rest of the staff; it is the server's. That's €152 for the same amount of work.
In case math isn't your strong suit, that's a 50% increase in wages earned. This is a simplification of the facts, admittedly - I'm not taking into account the conversion rate, cost of living, or anything else like that. It's still a pretty impressive income difference.
$16k/yr vs €24k/yr ($33.7k/year) is a staggering difference. In the US, that would boost you up two tax brackets.
For some bonus fun, the current Federal Minimum Wage in the States is $7.25. Taking the same numbers as before, we can do some quick math. 7 hours of work comes out to $50.75. $800 in sales, $120 in included service. Let's say 33% of that gets dispersed through the restaurant (bussers, bartenders, etc.), though I'm sure restaurants would find a way to take more. So $80 goes to you. Even if you don't make a penny off change left behind, you're still talking about $130. Over the course of a year you could easily be looking at a 25% wage increase. Instead of servers simply surviving, they might actually be able to save up a little and have a real chance to break free.
I didn't even touch on things like slow lunches, where you might work for five hours and make $20 because it was dead. Your wages and tips are averaged across an entire week, so as long as you do well at another meal, the restaurant will never have to pay you to reach the minimum wage.
Restaurants claim that paying servers minimum wage would destroy restaurants, that it would be fiscally impossible to keep their doors open if they paid servers a living wage. I'm pretty sure that thousands of restaurants across Europe can disprove that theory.
Fair wages for servers is one of my many interests for law school. While I am primarily interested in international human rights, I cannot deny the appeal of spearheading a crusade to overhaul the wage system for the service industry. I suspect it will always be a pet project.
And who knows, maybe one of my former coworkers will follow a similar path, go to law school, and finally get the unfair service laws in this country changed.
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