They have to tip out a percentage of their sales to the hostesses, bartenders, food runners, bussers, kitchen and….the house. Not sure if the general public realizes that servers don’t get to keep all their tips. And not for one or two hours, but for two or three shifts. My previous manager would hire really inexperienced and foreign girls (never males), convince them he was doing them a favour, and they were so grateful that they agreed to be trained unpaid. 8 shady labour violations that Ontario servers and bartenders deal with: Why would it? You cannot agree to sign your rights away in Ontario. Hard.Īnd even if servers/bartenders were raking it in, that doesn’t excuse any of the following labour violations. Whatever they are earning, they’re working for it. Either way, they’re working their ass off, on their feet for hours and hours a day and dealing with a variety of super annoying and super demanding people. The three others you have you’re barely making above minimum wage.Ĭontrary to popular belief, the majority of servers/bartenders work at places where sales are low and customers are shitty tippers. You may make a ton of cash on Friday night, but that’s only one shift a week. Get good shifts, which are extremely competitiveĬ. Get a job at a thriving restaurant/ barī. But, to make any sort of “good” living you have to:Ī. Almost all servers/bartenders do make more than minimum wage, which is great.
Kubes restaurant professional#
But that’s the minority, and most of them are professional waiters with a ton of experience, are really hot or just got lucky. On specific places and specific nights you can make a lot of cash and there are many servers/bartenders raking it in. Myth: Server bartenders make a ton of cash so they should suck it up They have no idea that their labour rights have been violated They’re usually making more than minimum wageī. Violations are “routine” in the industry so it’s not better at elsewhereĬ. They’re young, and often female and it’s hard to stand up to a manager when you’ve been socialized not toĭ. Or an Irish person on a work-visa, as is increasingly the case in Toronto.Įmployees almost always suck it up because:Ī. I bring joy and drunkenness to people in needīecause it’s considered a “fun” and low-skill industry, a ton of illegal or should-be-illegal labour violations go on that are completely ignored because employees are too scared to rock the boat because they know they’ll be fired the second they complain and be replaced in a hot minute with the next busty 19 year-old. My attitude towards my job was summed up by the fabulous Freya Beauchamp in Witches of East End. The physicality was the perfect foil to writing, and it beat the hell out of working in the mall. I loved meeting new people, getting a workout every day and bonding with coworkers. That being said, I enjoyed my time in the service industry.
The industry won’t change unless those working in it push back. I encourage everyone experiencing any violations to do the same. Last year, I filed a claim against my previous employer, a popular Toronto bar, for violating the Employer Standards Act, and won. I’m not afraid to call out any of these places because I don’t work in the industry anymore. I’ve worked a variety of Toronto resos/bars in various front-of-the house positions, from hostess to waitress to bartender. (The landscape is different in chain-restuarants.) Instead we’re here to talk about the serious labour violations that routinely go onin an industry largely run by small-business owners dealing with tight margins. My resume didn’t matter, only my tits did, but that’s a different type of shady shit happening in the industry that we will not be discussing today.
I walked in, the manager looked me up and down and said “You’re hired”. One of the only instances of career-serendipitousness in my life. The day after my return a local pub called me in for an interview. I papered the town with resumes in April and heard nothing back, so I went backpacking around Greece for a month. The service industry in Ontario is shady as eff and I’m hoping Ontario’s new labour legislation will help that.
0 kommentar(er)
