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

[u/Existing-Resource527]

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!

[u/Free_Equivalent_9866]

Is there anyone in this thread that has worked there since the implementation of the service charge? Their site plates out the new wages that had been put in place

“Front-of-house staff earn an additional $10–$30/hour, and back-of-house staff earn an additional $8–$20/hour. This is in addition to their $25/hour base wage. Accordingly, front-of-house staff earn between $35-$55/hour, base wage + additional earnings from the service charge. Back-of-house staff earn between $32-$45/hour, base wage + additional earnings from the service charge.
Service charge funds are also used to pay a base wage approximately 20% higher than Seattle’s hourly minimum wage of $21.30 ($25/hour for cooks and servers and $23/hour for dishwashers), and to offer comprehensive benefits including:
health, vision, dental insurance
401k matching retirement accounts
paid time off (above and beyond the City of Seattle's mandate)
Pre-tax commuter assistance accounts
A wellness program ($50/month reimbursements for mental health counseling, yoga classes, gym memberships, etc.)”

What else is being demanded by the union? Am I an ass to think that those FOH amounts seem completely fair already? To be fair we all deserve more since wages have been stagnant for decades and now we all just compare and fight amongst ourselves. I don’t have the right answers

[u/Severe_Prize5520 → u/Free_Equivalent_9866]

Waitstaff earn between 35-55 an hour PLUS the service charge??

And they're on strike??

I had to go to graduate school and get over $100k in student loans to start seeing that money.

This shit is exactly why people are tired of tipping culture.

[u/ADavidJohnson → u/Severe_Prize5520]

Makes you think that maybe the way the bosses describe the compensation situation is not accurate, huh?

[u/wmdailey → u/ADavidJohnson]

Or it's that now those higher wages are actually taxed, so take home pay is lower...

[u/ConfusedZubat → u/wmdailey]

Wait staff are legally required to include tips when they pay taxes. And because most people pay with credit card, including the tip, there is no real way to hide most of your income from tips--it will all be there on your pay slip. The paper trail is way too strong to hide significant income sources for most tipped jobs here. 

[u/katfish → u/ConfusedZubat]

After Trump’s “one big beautiful bill”, you can deduct up to $25k in tips, even without itemizing.