New Report Highlights Why Tip-Based Wages are Racist/Sexist

FEATURING SARU JAYARAMAN – March 24 2021 was Equal Pay Day. The National Committee on Pay Equity defines it as the date that, “symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.” The group One Fair Wage released a report on the wages of tipped workers to mark the day called Tipping Point: How the Subminimum Wage Keeps Incomes Low and Harassment High. Focused on women workers in the restaurant industry the report covers, “the prevalence of sexual harassment among tipped workers, its connection to tipped workers’ subminimum wage, and the consequences faced by survivors, including retaliation by employers for reporting.” Conditions for tipped workers were even worse during the pandemic the report found.

Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage and Assistant Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.

** This segment was originally broadcast on 3/26/2021.