Service Industry Social: only the beginning

Sean opens up the event.

A chorus of “ohhh yeah”s followed when Restaurant Worker United Vice President and Line Cook Sean asked, “Who here has had their boss deny them their breaks?”

Even more responded affirmatively when he asked, “Who here has been pressured to come in to work while sick?”

Sydney and Zane successfully organized their workplace and came to tell the tale!

Special thanks to Vermillion for allowing use of their space for the event.

Last week at the Service Industry Worker Social, over 50 workers showed up to talk about how when workers have each other’s backs, we can change our workplaces.

Together with Restaurant Workers United, we were able to reach Seattle area industry workers who often face some of the toughest and most unfair working conditions in our cities.

“We spend hours, often upwards of eight hours on our feet, putting strain on our backs, knees or hands…We endure unbearably hot workplaces, we breathe in toxic air from stoves, ovens, broilers, grills and the chemicals we use to clean them. In many workplaces, we do this all without a break and for very little pay.”

Workers were encouraged to talk to each other about the issues they face in their workplaces, and to write a few on Post-It notes on the wall. Workers who have successfully organized and changed their workplaces for the better gave short speeches outlining what that process was like in both English and Spanish. We wrapped up the program with another highly effective organizing tool in this industry - karaoke time! 😎

By the end of the night, workers walked away having connected with the only people who can really understand - each other.

Service industry workers are tired of being exploited, and we know it’s time to change things, workplace by workplace. If you work in the service industry and would like to join the momentum, reach out to Lexy and join in on the next event!

Celebrating 7 Years of Seattle's Secure Scheduling Ordinance!

Seven years ago workers across the food service and retail sectors got fed up with being treated by our corporate employers as if we exist solely to serve at the beck and call of our boss. Having no predictability or flexibility at work made it impossible to live our lives — raise kids, have a vacation, be creative, enjoy other opportunities. So, we fought for Seattle’s first-ever secure scheduling ordinance, and today we celebrate seven years of a worker-won policy that gives us some breathing room. And thanks to the Office of Labor Standards, workers have held employers accountable to the law and put nearly $10 million back in workers’ pockets. Here’s to the next seven and many more!

“The principle behind secure scheduling is clear: workers are people. Workers have lives away from work. We all have a right to know when we’re going to work and how many hours we’re going to get. We’re proud to celebrate seven years of our nation-leading secure scheduling law that holds large corporate employers accountable to this principle and grants workers greater stability and joy both inside and outside of work.”

— Danielle Alvarado, Executive Director | Working Washington & Fair Work Center

How does secure scheduling work?

• Employers must post work schedules at least 14 days in advance, and respect employees’ right to decline any hours not on originally posted schedules.

• Employees are entitled to time-and-a-half pay for any hours worked between closing and opening shifts that are separated by less than 10 hours.

• Employers must provide a written good faith estimate of median hours employees can expect to work and whether employees will work on-call shifts to new employees at the time of hire, and to current employees on an annual basis and when there is a significant change to employees’ schedules.

And more! Read more about the policy here.

5 Year Anniversary of The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

Celebrating five years!

Five years ago the city of Seattle set a powerful and historic precedent as the first city in the nation to have a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. 

Who is a domestic worker?
Domestic workers are those who provide paid services to an individual or household in a private home as a nanny, house cleaner, home care worker, gardener, cook, and/or household manager. These workers have been historically excluded from the same rights other workers have long enjoyed.

What does it do? 

The Domestic Worker Ordinance establishes:

• Minimum wage for domestic workers

• Provision of meal periods

• Rest breaks

• The right to keep personal documents.

• Establishing the Domestic Worker Standards Board (DWSB)

Who made it happen: 

None of this would have happened without the tireless efforts of the Nanny Collective, along with worker champion Teresa Mosqueda, and our community partners Casa Latina, Hand in Hand, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and friends in the labor community!

La lucha sigue: 

The fight continues! Today, we celebrate; tomorrow, we press on to make this ordinance cover exploited domestic workers all over the state of Washington. Although Seattle was the first city to have such an ordinance, eleven states have also now enshrined domestic worker protections, and Washington must do the same.

How can I help? 

• Follow the Nanny Collective on Facebook and Instagram! 

• Donate to our sibling organization, Fair Work Center and empower your domestic worker neighbors in Washington state.

• Come celebrate with us! We’ll be gathered at Pratt Park (201 20th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144) on Monday July 1st from 5pm-8pm. Refreshments and activities will be provided! Children and families are all welcome as we mark this historic milestone.

Workers in the Seattle Times: KEEP PAYUP IN PLACE

Is Seattle summer weather finally heating up or is our blood boiling because Council President Sara Nelson and the app corporations are still trying to cut gig workers’ pay?

To catch you up: Nelson has been on a reckless, bewildering mission to rob gig workers of the right to minimum wage. Together with the app corporations, she has been championing a deeply unpopular proposal that the corporations wrote to gut workers’ wages, take transparency rights away from both customers and workers, and allow corporations free rein to charge junk fees that harm us all. 

But despite Nelson and the app corporations shutting us out of their back-door deliberations as they try to undo our right to minimum wage, workers continue to organize hard and make our voices heard. 

Just this week, The Seattle Times published Seattle delivery driver Mupopa Tshibuabua’s op-ed calling on the council to keep PayUp in place. You should read it (it’s worth the two minutes, we promise!) and >> share it on your channels << to amplify the voices of actual workers who are finally earning a living wage doing gig work.

“In the eyes of these companies, we’re just inventory. But we are people with lives and families. We won the right to get paid minimum wage after expenses. Now the companies are attacking the law because they don’t want workers elsewhere to believe that something like that is possible. Seattle shouldn’t fall for it. The Seattle City Council should keep the law in place.”

— Mupopa Tshibuabua

Workers still need your help. We’ve managed to hold off the corporations’ hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-worth in lobbying efforts and Council President Nelson’s bizarre priority mission to slash gig workers’ wages up ‘til now – but she’s still trying, even though 82% of Seattle voters do not support what she’s doing. 

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for real-time updates about our fight to protect fair wages and be the first to get looped in when we need solidarity and support. Thanks for always standing with workers.

The Seattle Times: "I’m a delivery driver. Here’s why Seattle should keep PayUp law"

By Mupopa Tshibuabua, The Seattle Times — June 20, 2024

As a longtime delivery driver, I take exception to the June 10 op-ed by the Drive Forward executive director Michael Wolfe, arguing that what delivery workers really need is lower pay. The column described Drive Forward as “representing gig workers,” but they don’t represent workers like me at all. As The Times itself has published, Drive Forward was founded and is funded by Uber and DoorDash. Its board is controlled by Uber and DoorDash executives.

I have been an Uber delivery driver for several years to supplement my Social Security benefits after undergoing treatment for two different cancers. While Uber continued to charge high fees to customers and restaurants, our pay was getting lower. I regularly got orders paying under $3. As contractors, we drivers pay all our own expenses, like mileage and extra taxes, so I would have to somehow cover all those costs out of that $3. I once received an order from a restaurant in Bellevue for delivery to a customer in Seattle that paid only $5. The mileage alone would have cost me more than Uber was paying.

That all changed this year when Seattle’s new PayUp law took effect, requiring apps to pay at least minimum wage after expenses on each job. I compared my total earnings from January to May in 2023, and January to May of this year — before and after the PayUp ordinance. For those five months in 2023, I made $6,690 total. This year, with PayUp, I made $10,115 during the same period.

The PayUp law put much more money in my account for roughly the same effort.

Now, thanks to PayUp, I decide which offers I take, without being penalized by Uber. If I have to wait for an order at a restaurant or get stuck in traffic, I finally get paid for that time. Before, I would find myself getting irritated when any problem arose, and even get into arguments. My customer satisfaction rating has been consistently 97% or higher, and my cancellation rate is zero.

The app companies aren’t happy, though. As soon as PayUp took effect, the apps announced a new $5 fee and blamed it on the law. Not only did they add the fee, they advertised that fee to customers, with in-app pop-ups, emails and online ads. The result was reduced demand as part of a strategy to repeal the law. They want struggling restaurants to blame struggling drivers for their problems, and customers to blame the city. In my opinion, app companies are gouging restaurants, drivers, and customers all at the same time.

I have sympathy for restaurant owners because it’s a tough business. And app companies are hurting them too: Apps charge restaurants fees as high as 30% of the order price. If Seattle wants to help restaurants and make delivery affordable, we should lower that fee — not workers’ pay.

Despite companies’ attempts to reduce demand, most workers I have spoken with are doing better now. Yes, I’m getting slightly fewer delivery offers, but before PayUp, I rejected about 60% of them because they weren’t worth doing; now, I can accept almost 100%.

In the eyes of these companies, we’re just inventory. But we are people with lives and families. We won the right to get paid minimum wage after expenses. Now the companies are attacking the law because they don’t want workers elsewhere to believe that something like that is possible. Seattle shouldn’t fall for it. The Seattle City Council should keep the law in place.

Mupopa Tshibuabua is a retired software engineer and a graduate of Washington State University and Oregon State University. He has worked for Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq Computer.