The Grind

This is all fine and dandy, but it is not just women who are exploited in the restaurant business.

Every worker in the trade is at risk of exploitation.  All the time.

To Oregon's credit, the state's minimum wage laws are inclusive of restaurant workers, but that is not the case nationwide.

Not that Oregon's minimum wage is any great shakes. A single person will have a hard time surviving on today's minimum wage, no matter how austere his or her existence. Typically, rent will eat up over half of a minimum wage-earner's take home.

In fact the Oregon Restaurant Association has for years fought like hell for an exemption to the minimum wage standards set for all of Oregon's workers.

Poor Chris Dudley sought the ORA's endorsement in 2010 and paid dearly for it among service industry voters, who were aghast that the millionaire ex-Blazer supported rolling back wages for restaurant workers in his 2010 gubernatorial run.

It was a laughable blunder by Dudley, demonstrating just how out of touch his campaign was with the state's wage slaves.

A good waiter or waitress lucky enough to be in the right establishment in Oregon can make a decent living, but those kinds of situations are rare. And they do not always last, as the business is extremely volatile.

Today's hot spot can be tomorrow's losing proposition, just like that.

Stress? Unsatisfactory working conditions? Unless you've been in the business you don't know half the story.



TS