A Workers’ Charter
The past two years have seen a sharp decline in the health and economic conditions of workers in the restaurant sector and beyond. What was initially an exceptional situation has become a permanent crisis of the working class.
As workers, we are forced between risking our lives and risking our livelihoods. Our experience has confirmed, again and again, that ‘essential’ workers are entirely disposable when profits are at stake.
Death and illness have affected restaurant workers disproportionately. During surges of disease, we are told to remain at our posts. The vast majority of employers refuse to provide us with adequate masks and implement consistent safety measures. Our health plays little role in the calculations of our bosses.
Our economic situation is dire. Work closures or time off due to exposure or illness can mean several days, or even weeks, without pay. For those of us who contract the virus, lack of health insurance can add up to a lifetime of medical debt. Wages lost while securing Covid tests can be the difference between making ends meet or risking eviction and starvation. Our employers are content to exploit us while we can work, but they will kick us to the curb with nothing when we need time off to quarantine or recover from illness.
While their tactics change from day to day, the capitalists and their political representatives have been brutally consistent in placing the interests of capital over the interests of the working class. This situation is inevitable in a society organized to maximize profits at any cost, and not to meet the needs of working people.
The government is not neutral in this crisis. Beyond words and inadequate reforms, elected officials and government bureaucrats have proven they are the faithful servants of capital. Examples are not hard to find:
In the first phase of the pandemic, elected officials arranged a $4 trillion gift to big monopoly corporations, while smaller companies got $669 billion through the PPP program, and the much more numerous working class got a meager $269 billion – less than 6% of what was given to the owners of capital! State economic assistance has primarily served to line the pockets of monopoly capitalists and parasitic landlords.
More recently, when profits demanded it, the CDC bureaucrats recommended that isolation time for infected individuals be cut in half, from 10 days to 5 days. So much for “listen to science”! Health regulations have never been consistently applied when they threaten to disrupt the flow of profits.
Meanwhile, the state has failed to combat inflation that has led to the most significant erosion of real wages seen in the last 50 years. Our already-low wages are being lowered further by the skyrocketing cost of living.
The line at a mobile testing site in Sunset Park, Brooklyn on December 20, 2021. (Farah Javed/THE CITY)
In order to build our movement and advance our own interests as workers, the Restaurant Workers Union is calling for a joint front, open to ALL workers and the organizations that represent them, to fight for the following demands:
No lost wages due to COVID
We must not let the exploiters cast us aside in the event of exposure or illness. We demand that the bosses pay for every cent of wages lost due to time spent getting vaccinations or Covid tests, quarantining at home, or caring for sick family members. In cases of temporary closure, all workers must be paid their full wages.
Universal health insurance
Wealth in our society is produced by the working class, but the capitalists keep most of it for themselves. We demand that some of the wealth we produce be returned to us in the form of free health care. No worker should be forced into debt because they are unable to afford medical bills.
Cost of living adjustments for the wages of workers
In times of crisis, the state resorts to inflationary measures in order to drive down the real wages of workers. This means that, even if we make the same dollar-amount per hour, we can purchase less and less with each dollar we earn. Declining purchasing power means that capitalists rob us twice: once on pay day, and then again when we buy what we need to live. We demand that the state implement price controls and index the minimum wage to inflation! And as we organize, we will force the bosses to agree to cost of living adjustments to our wages and benefits!
Universal and expanded unemployment insurance
The current system of unemployment insurance is grossly inadequate to meet the needs of workers. Unemployment benefits average only 33% of former wages, although we all know that bills do not magically decrease by 2/3 when we are laid off! The benefits end after an arbitrary period of time, despite the real conditions in the job market. And the millions of workers who are undocumented, the backbone of the restaurant industry, are excluded entirely. In the absence of guaranteed employment, we demand that unemployment benefits triple in amount, cover all workers, and have no end date.
An indefinite moratorium on evictions
When work is not guaranteed, when we can be sent home from work at any moment with nothing, we should not be expelled from our homes into the streets. From the end of the 2007-09 Great Recession to the present, homelessness in NYC has been steadily rising, with no end in sight. Let the landlords ask their politician friends for a break on mortgage payments – or better yet, let them find a job like everyone else!
A starting wage of $25/hour
The minimum wage in NYC is a meager $15/hour. In restaurants that take the tip credit, workers in the tip pool make $12.50/hour plus tips. According to the MIT living wage calculator, a single adult with no children in the borough of Queens would need to make $21.77/hour to meet typical expenses. That means the current minimum wage is 31% below what is required.
A universal employment guarantee
No worker should go hungry while workplaces are abandoned and equipment sits unused. No boss should be able to use the threat of layoffs to keep our wages low and degrade our standard of living. We demand legislation guaranteeing employment for all who can work!
In order to realize these demands, mere words are not enough. Voting and petitions have gotten us nowhere. The time has come to organize our ranks and take the path of struggle. We must take up the weapons that have served us best throughout the history of our movement – including demonstrations, pickets, walkouts, and strikes – in order to impose these demands on the owners of capital and their political servants.