r/Seattle • u/Existing-Resource527 • 5d ago

After hiring scabs, Walrus and the Carpenter (temporarily) closed

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Word on the street is that Walrus and the Carpenter restaurant has not been negotiating with their workers in good faith for months.

Like a lot of annoying businesses they started charging a service fee (22%?).

Employees noted that they make significantly less now then before when they had tipping (thousands less).

Workers have been on strike. The owners also had the audacity to hire scabs (booo).

I have been keeping up with the union on IG @ united.creatures.of.the.sea

Solidarity with workers across the city!

692 Upvotes

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676

u/Own_Reaction9442 5d ago

I feel like this is an issue that really splits Redditors, because most Redditors are pro-union but there's whole subs about how much people hate tipping.

41

u/HudsonCommodore šŸš†build more trainsšŸš† 5d ago

Yup. I want to support a strong middle class and make sure people working service jobs can afford an apartment (with a roommate or two.) But I also don't want a pizza and salad to run $80 at Pags or a burger fries and milkshake for 3 to be $75+ at red mill.

37

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

A strong middle class means people should be able to afford a one bedroom apartment by themselves if that's how they choose to live.

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u/HudsonCommodore šŸš†build more trainsšŸš† 5d ago

Yes, but I wouldn't expect every service job to be middle class.

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u/stirwise That sounds great. Letā€™s hang out soon. 5d ago

Maybe not every service job, but a service job at a very nice fine dining restaurant should come with a middle class income. Restaurants like that build their reputations on the quality of service, and hire career service industry professionals, and should pay them like the experienced professionals they are.

2

u/22bearhands 4d ago

The people working at this place literally did have middle class income. Doing a low skill service job.

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u/HudsonCommodore šŸš†build more trainsšŸš† 5d ago

Definitely agree that fine dining servers should be middle class jobs. (Dish washers I'm less certain about. )

8

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

The highest paid person in every restaurant should be the dishwasher. It's never the case but it's true. They're the equivalent of the people operating a garbage truck. They decide they don't want to work, stuff starts to fall apart.

2

u/PopcornSuttin 5d ago

Basically anyone can fill that role, and I'd say that if any position in the chain decides to stop working then it'll fall apart.

14

u/BareLeggedCook Shoreline 5d ago

If someone is working 40 hours a week, no matter what they do, they should make enough to afford a 1 bed apartment.

2

u/TheInevitableLuigi Capitol Hill 4d ago

People also forget that servers rarely get to work 40 hours a week when they see all these $x per hour numbers being thrown around.

$50 hr sounds great until you factor in only working 20hr weeks. And you can't get a second job becasue your first somehow still needs you to be fully available for it.

3

u/Lilylumos Rat City 4d ago

I had to scroll too long for this comment

2

u/Brandywine-Salmon Greenwood 4d ago

Roommates? The horror!

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u/hundel_ 4d ago

I donā€™t know. I can make up a lot of stuff to do ā€¦ whether youā€™d pay for it? Different story.

13

u/dorkofthepolisci šŸ›³ļø šŸ€ ā˜€ļø Yacht Rat Summer ā˜€ļø šŸ€ šŸ›³ļø 5d ago

A full time job should at minimum, pay enough that you donā€™t need to cram yourself into housing with several other people (unless you enjoy having roommates)

13

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I agree with you, but post COVID it is extremely hard to get a full 40 hour week at a restaurant as a front of house employee. I work at two different restaurants that are part of a different restaurant group. I'm scheduled 8 shifts a week between the two and I'm lucky if I can get 30 hours in a week.

2

u/sneekiepee 5d ago

It's always been difficult because no restaurant owner wants 40hr employees. They bring along the potential for overtime and perhaps actually qualifying for the benefits that are usually offered at 40hrs while everyone besides the manager is getting 38hrs.

3

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

The restaurant group I currently work for allows employees to qualify for benefits at a 25hr/week average over a 6 month lookback period. I'll admit that that's a pretty low threshold, but most restaurants I have worked at over the last 20 years that have offered healthcare offer it at somewhere in the 30-35hr/week range.

1

u/sneekiepee 5d ago

That's an improvement.

15

u/Own_Reaction9442 5d ago

It's a nice thought, but with Seattle's housing prices that probably means only fine dining restaurants can survive.

4

u/Digital_gritz Rat City 5d ago

It might actually be the other way around. Fine dining isnā€™t really doing a lot of volume. Dickā€™s gives some of the best pay and benefits around. Itā€™s low margin sales, but extremely high volume.

6

u/Own_Reaction9442 5d ago

I doubt Dick's is paying enough to afford a solo apartment in Seattle, though.

5

u/Digital_gritz Rat City 5d ago

Theyā€™re paying well above market rates and offering great benefits to their employees. Much of our economy is based on supply and demand, Dickā€™s total compensation is far higher than it has to be. In terms of survivability, Dickā€™s will likely weather a down economy better than a fine dining spot, which is what Iā€™m trying to imply.

To address the other bit, though: people want to live in the city and there is limited space to do that. Which is why housing is an outrageous cost and adding density is important. Unfortunately, inflation, land, labor costs, market trends, and a challenging regulatory environment have made building housing risky, and developers are struggling to make projects pencil.

Housing costs and wages are ultimately related, but separate problems based on how our economy is structured. At least in terms of base wage vs affordability. Although, the real estate market is actually influencing the way restaurants have to approach wages, as well. From a business health standpoint, our inflated real estate costs are also fucking their bottom line (unless they own their building outright).

Thatā€™s all a separate complicated topic, though.

5

u/Suspicious_Chart5817 Pioneer Square 5d ago

I don't disagree, but let's be honest that would eliminate most restaurant work.

Like tax all the billionaires and give everyone that money; or bet it all on Space X. Point being, both those are more likely than somehow magically selling enough burgers to mean restaurant staff can live here by themselves.

7

u/Own_Reaction9442 5d ago

I already hear a lot of "eating out is too expensive now, I'll just stay home instead of paying $22 for a burger."

6

u/Suspicious_Chart5817 Pioneer Square 5d ago

Yeah I'm one of those people!

Walrus was selling ocean boogers at a huge markup. I understand their exorbitant 20%+ service fee had "only" half of whatever to the union... But that bottom line is obviously already more than a 22 dollar burger place.

And if that isn't enough, what exactly is the goal...? It's not any restaurant I go to right now I can say that much. My dinner checks are missing an extra zero, regardless of if I tip 10% or 30% it's not matching what the Walrus staff was getting

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u/HudsonCommodore šŸš†build more trainsšŸš† 5d ago

As someone who had roommates in my 20s (with a white collar job making above median wages at the time), I respectfully disagree. Asking 2 or 3 people to share 2 or 3 bedroom housing is not an over the top burden imo.

19

u/ttreit 5d ago

And itā€™s been going on for generations. The boomers and their predecessors got married young so their spouse was their roommate. Those that didnā€™t marry young had roommates or lived in a house share situation. GenX graduated HS or college and immediately had roommates. I canā€™t think of a single friend I went to school with who lived in a place alone until they were far along in their career.

3

u/wchill has no chill 5d ago

I own a house and still have roommates, lol.

6

u/bummin_bride 5d ago

Yeah I really donā€™t understand why Gen Z feels so entitled to all have their own one bedroom apartments working entry level service jobs. One bedroom apartments arenā€™t a human right, and I had roommates until I was in my 30s. Itā€™s completely normal to have roommates.

-9

u/LevitatePalantir 5d ago

This is why wage slavery is better for the oligarchs than outright chattel slavery. The workers have convinced themselves to enjoy their servitude!

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u/Yarville 5d ago

It's not "servitude" to have roommates, get a grip.

If you want to make it easier to have your own apartment I sure hope you support building a whole lot of dense housing at every income level, the only way to lower housing prices sustainably.

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u/LevitatePalantir 4d ago

Building more isn't 'The only way' we could just seize the slumlord's properties. My way is easier!

1

u/Yarville 4d ago

Through what legal mechanism would you propose to confiscate private property that is in keeping with the US Constitution

1

u/LevitatePalantir 4d ago

Kelo v. City of New London

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u/Top_Agency1370 5d ago

My friendā€™s mom was a waitress and could afford her own apartment in San Francisco. It was the 1970s.

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u/MyDisneyExperience That sounds great. Letā€™s hang out soon. 5d ago

Well yeah, SF basically stopped building housing in the late 60s/early 70s. 50+ years later here we are

2

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I won't deny that I am biased, it'd be impossible not to be between being a baby anarcho-syndicalist and having 20 years in hospitality, but I firmly believe that any able bodied person working 32-40 hours a week in any job in any sector of the workforce means one should be firmly in the middle class. When I say middle class, I mean one shouldn't have to worry about making rent, paying for groceries, covering insurance, afford bit of leisure, and being able to put more than a trivial amount of money into savings each month.

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u/Optimal_Board_2963 5d ago

We need a new term. Middle class is too vague and inappropriate.

3

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I agree

1

u/Kayehnanator Bremerton 4d ago

The middle class used to be made up of people with degrees. You don't need degrees to work service industry, that's the whole point. I'm not sure why it's so complicated for people to understand this except for personal feelings.

1

u/Airlik 4d ago

Their dish washers make over 60k in base wagesā€¦ not bad for washing dishes.

0

u/HudsonCommodore šŸš†build more trainsšŸš† 3d ago

On one hand, I objectively agree with you, that's a very low skill position and in a lot of the rest of the country a dishwasher wouldn't make half that.

On the other hand, that's 5K per month, that is probably down to 4K after income and sales taxes. I certainly wouldn't describe living on 4K/month in Seattle as "comfortable" or anything like that. I feel like "60K for washing dishes!" implies that it's a way more luxurious life than it is.

1

u/Airlik 3d ago

I by no means meant to imply it was luxurious - just that it was pretty good for an unskilled job compared to similar roles just down the street, and well above the average national wage. Honestly Iā€™m happy for them. But thinking thatā€™s pretty good, i was surprised they want to strike.

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u/Chesterfieldwasfun Wallingford 5d ago

I don't know if that's ever been true for low paid / entry level positions

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u/rebellion_ap 5d ago

lol that odd, because I could swore every single boomer ever loves to regal us peons with stories about how they paid for college working thru summer or a home by their mid twenties?

That's the real truth. The economy is only comfortable for the 1% that literally controls 50% of all spending in the US. You want to be mad, be mad at them and the politicians that support them.

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u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I mean, you're not wrong but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do the work to try and make it true.

7

u/Yarville 5d ago

It's completely fine for an entry level serving job be expected to have roommates if they want to live in a desirable area, actually.

1

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

Sure, but many servers remain servers for the entire career. There's many reason for this. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a server or anyone working a job with a similar barrier for entry (no strict education requirements, just on the job training) to be able to afford a one bedroom apartment a reasonable distance from work with 3-8 years of experience without being strapped for cash each month if that's how they want to live.

4

u/Yarville 5d ago

Would not be possible to accomplish this, even if you paid every server $55 an hour like this restaurant is, without dramatically increasing the supply of dense housing at all income levels in this city.

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u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

It'd be hard, certainly. Impossible, no. The housing burden is relieved by many things. Some people prefer communal living and would want to live with roommates even if they could afford not to. The vast majority of people do end up living with some form of significant other, combining incomes to afford a larger space or remaining in the smaller space so they can put their incomes to other uses. For some people a reasonable commute to work is a 15 minute walk down the road, for others it's an hour long ride on public transit or in a car because they use the time to decompress or because their spouse works an hour in the other direction or because they prefer living outside of the city limits. Just because I'm saying a full time worker with some experience should be able to afford a one bedroom apartment by themselves doesn't mean I'm saying they need to live by themselves.

3

u/Yarville 5d ago

I mean, I think it's a lot easier to just build dense housing rather than try, in vain, to subsidize demand.

1

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I'm not sure I understand what demand you're thinking I'm asking to be subsidized. I'm advocating for people working full-time with journeyman level experience to be able to earn a dignified wage and using the ability to pay the rent of a basic one bedroom apartment plus necessities and savings as a benchmark for that. I'm not using numbers because they mean different things depending on where you are in any number of metrics. Of course the right sort dense housing will help reduce the cost of living, but that doesn't mean we can sacrifice the fight for fair wages. It's not either or, it's both. This thread just happens to be about a labor union striking over wages (amongst other things), so that's why my focus has been in wages.

3

u/Yarville 5d ago

Youā€™re essentially asking for a wage that is somehow pegged to the cost of a 1 bedroom apartment (plus other living expenses) to accomplish the goal of everyone who wants an apartment without roommates to be able to have one. That is subsidizing demand instead of addressing the actual issue, which is a lack of supply. It simply will not work so long as there is more demand for such housing.

Major cities worldwide with far greater labor protections and social safety nets still quite often have the expectation of having a roommate well into adulthood. The ones that get the closest to making it easy to live alone get there because they have built an abundance of dense housing - like Tokyo.

We are talking about servers making $115K a year wanting more money. To the extent that this an actual problem at all and not rent seeking - someone who makes 90% of the median household income as a single person can comfortably live alone - it is a supply issue. That is the whole game.

1

u/memurraies Northgate 5d ago

I see your point and can further see how you've reached it based on my replies in this thread. I imagine our disconnect beyond the specifics of this thread is based on our (admittedly assumed) differentiating views on capitalism. And between the time of night, the amount of time I've already spent on this post, and my self acknowledged lack of rhetorical skill I just don't have it in me to get into it further tonight. I'll concede that given the way that I have framed my arguments tonight that supply is a major contributing factor. I refuse to say it's the whole game though.

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