An examination of the restaurant industry in the Big Apple and the rotten practices behind it.
By Gergana Koleva
Louis, a 29-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant, spends his days kneading thin crust pizzas. He’s the main attraction of the restaurant where he works, in the trendy East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. At the far end of the dining room is the glowing brick oven where seven hours a day, six days a week, Louis hurls – with theatrical flair – dozens of 12-inch pies topped with anything from Italian prosciutto to Lebanese zaatar.
For his work, Louis is paid about $400 a week. If business shoots up during a particular week, his employer, who is also the owner and manager of the restaurant, might hand him a $50 bonus – under the table or, more precisely, over the heated aluminum shelf where pizzas sit before they make their way to hungry customers. Louis takes the envelope and swiftly tucks it away. If his boss sees him counting the money, he will make fun of him. “Don’t worry, I won’t shortchange you,” he would say in his thick lazy voice.
In fact, he shortchanges him all the time.
Earning less than $10 an hour, Louis counts among 80 per cent of New York City’s restaurant workers who live below the poverty line. In 2004, the U.S. federal government set the livable wage for New York at $13.47 an hour – but in the shadow world of restaurants, most of which are staffed by immigrants with no legal status, norms and regulations are routinely flouted. Overtime pay (for hours worked that exceed the 40-hour week), health benefits, safety measures, and professional relations between employer and employees exist in but a few of those establishments.
New immigrants frequently seek employment in the restaurant industry because they are not required to have formal credentials and job training is relatively easy. On the other hand, restaurant employers hire such people precisely because of the freedom it affords them to cut corners. In New York, foreign-born workers account for almost 70 per cent of the restaurant workforce, according to a 2005 report released by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), an umbrella organization for restaurant workers.
“The truth is that employers actually prefer undocumented workers because they are more afraid to speak up on the job,” says Saru Jayaraman, executive director of ROC-NY.. “ They’re afraid that if they speak up on the job, they’ll get fired or deported.”
Labor law violations and intimidation tactics are easy to perpetrate in the restaurant business, which is already an extremely profitable trade. With more than 15,000 eating and drinking establishments in the New York metropolitan area, it is the second largest segment in the retail industry. According to the City Council’s Human Services and Governmental Affairs departments, combined revenues of New York restaurants are expected to reach 13 billion dollars in 2010 – 5 billion more than what they were in 2000, and 7 billion less than what they are expected to be in 2020.
Why must a lucrative service sector sustain itself mainly on immigrant – and often illegal – labor?
Immigration experts cite the “invisible” workforce behind the kitchen door as the chief factor for the industry’s over reliance on undocumented workers. Chefs, line cooks, delivery personnel, and dishwashers who often double as cleaning persons often fulfill jobs that most Americans simply do not want
“In the US and Europe there are whole sectors of the economy that are now culturally coded for immigrants,” says Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration Studies at New York University. He says that New York City’s restaurant industry is one of the chief providers of jobs staffed by immigrants.
According to ROC-NY, two-thirds of the 165,000 restaurant employees are foreign-born, but it is nearly impossible to obtain hard, accurate figures for how many of them are undocumented. Illegal immigrants are reluctant to reveal their status to census takers, and employers are equally reluctant to admit to hiring them, because it is against the law. There are not even precise statistics on how many undocumented people live in New York City. The closest estimate is that New York is home to about 1.5 million foreign-born non-citizens – which typically means people who are not eligible to work in the U.S.
Citing statistics from the ROC-NY report, Jayaraman estimates that 40 per cent of restaurant workers are undocumented. Which means that almost one third of New York City’s foreign-born residents without work permits are currently employed in restaurants.
“As a customer, you’re not saving much because the dishwasher is an illegal immigrant,” says Suarez-Orozco.”It’s the owner of the restaurant who gets greater returns.”
Ultimately, it is also the economy that is getting a boost from undocumented labor. The New York Times recently reported there are at least 6 million undocumented workers in the U.S., who contribute almost $6 billion in uncollected Social Security taxes. The explanation is that many immigrants who are ineligible for work in the U.S. obtain fake Social Security cards, and as the numbers on them do not correspond to the person’s identity, they are not able to claim the taxes they have paid on that number. This is the price some undocumented workers pay for passing off as “legal” in the hope of having an easier time finding a job, or bypassing humiliating treatment like the one Louis receives, based on immigration status.
In the restaurant industry, ethnic identity perhaps even more than immigration status is crucial to how people get hired. In 2000 Latinos were the largest ethnic group represented in the restaurant industry, accounting for 34.9 per cent of the workforce – 60 per cent of which was made up from immigrants from Mexico, Central, and South America. By comparison, only 22.1 per cent Latinos were employed in jobs citywide that year, and less than half of them came from a foreign country.
According to a report that ROC-NY prepared earlier this year about the various forms of exploitation in the restaurant industry, it is easy – shamefully easy – to take advantage of undocumented workers. Some employers even conceded that if illegal workers were removed from the workforce, the restaurant industry would shut down.
“They come in hungry, a bowl of rice is a luxury for them. They work harder than six or seven other workers in some cases. This makes them easier to take advantage of…They have to do the work others will not and they’re more than willing to take on additional tasks, those outside their official duties, like cleaning bathrooms – without complaint,” said a restaurant employer from a national chain who was interviewed for the report.
Only a fraction of undocumented workers get fake Social Security cards. Many more opt for working “off the books,” and are paid in cash –often at their employer’s discretion. Some estimates put the total number of undocumented workers in the United States – both the ones with fake identity cards and those without them – at 14 million
“The underlying problem is about exploitation of workers. The issue of status is just one more tool that employers use to exploit workers,” says Jayaraman, who asserts that to solve the problems of undocumented restaurant workers, the restaurant industry must first take a hard look at its treatment of immigrants and people of color, regardless of their immigration status. “It’s not about singling out these people and helping them out, it’s about lifting conditions across the board.”
While metaphors such as “the melting pot” and “cosmopolitan New York” deflect public scrutiny, undocumented people continue to flood the kitchens of the Big Apple.
Similarly, most diners continue to ignore their condition completely, even though we are faced with it every day. We watch Louis like a circus show, but do not stop to wonder whether he earns enough to keep his kids clothed – or take them and himself to the doctor when they fall sick. We’ve accepted this injustice as part of New York living. Thankfully, some continue the fight for better conditions, adamant that it will improve conditions for all workers – which might even make the food taste better.
The Kitchen Chronicles
By Gergana Koleva
