“To fight sexual harassment, we must start with better wages”
Claudia Chi Ku is a single mother of four who works as a server, food-runner, and bartender at a popular Mexican grill in Los Angeles. Like many in the restaurant industry, Chi Ku faces sexual harassment daily, while averaging just $10 in tips per shift.
She tolerates more than she might otherwise because she needs the money.
“You have to respond in a nice way so they don’t feel bad,” she says, “In the end, I depend on their tips – I depend on them being there.”
There are more than 11 million restaurant workers in the United States, and many of them have stories similar to Chi Ku’s, said Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California at Berkeley and co-director or the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United).
The food service industry is notoriously hard on its workers, in part because the federal minimum wage is just $2.13 for people who earn tips, Jayaraman said.
Those rock-bottom earnings all but guarantee a climate in which food servers put up with customer harassment just to eke out a living, she said.