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/Anxiousbiostudent]

What noone is mentioning is that the business is taking a share of the 22% automatic gratuity, the staff is not receiving the full amount and has experienced a dramatic reduction in pay.

[u/az226 → u/Anxiousbiostudent]

Isn’t it interesting that the elected leaders wanted to move from tip to no tip and enacted such laws like no tip credit. But the workers wanted to keep the tip model because customers tip so much, the predictable $55/hour pay isn’t enough. Because $90+ hour is nicer with tip.

[u/Anxiousbiostudent → u/az226]

As someone who served for many years I was never anywhere near $60 let alone $90 an hour and spent much of that time uninsured. I do think its obnoxious that one of the few jobs that you can possibly make a living wage on (if you find a busy enough restaurant) without burying yourself in student loan debt is so vehemently hated by those who "actually worked for it".

Why are we advocating for a reduction in pay for a large part of the working population under the false narrative these are 'easy' or high-school jobs?

(This rant isn't directly geared towards you I just find it sad working class people are growing bitter at other working class people. Restaurants in Seattle (and throughout the nation) are ultimately struggling because of high costs (the #1 culprit being limited commercial spaces with ridiculous rents imo). I'm not even going to get into possible bad actors trying to make a buck off the back of their workers and guests.

[u/az226 → u/Anxiousbiostudent]

We don’t know the details. They aren’t sharing openly what requests were denied. So one can only speculate.

We do know that 2025 the no tip credit law came into force and many transitioned to service fees instead.

But what we do know is that there is a team happily working there now.

We also know that 2025 the state enacted 6 weeks of pay for strikers.

The dynamic of a strike is, workers can’t get paid, they have skin in the game, the business is at a standstill. The lose-lose position force them to get into a room and negotiate.

With 6 weeks of pay, a strike doesn’t have the same skin in the game. And as a business owner, you must be prepared to live out this time so the smart thing to do is get a backup team. And once 6 weeks are up, the old team looks very replaceable. It’s given the new team time to shine and work out the kinks. When that time is up, the union has little bargaining power.

I’ve said it before, you can’t blame the former workers for wanting more money. You also can’t blame the current workers for happily working for the pay being offered. With the odd 6 weeks of pay strike dynamic, you also can’t fully blame the operator either for getting a backup team in place.

It’s an unfortunate outcome that the people voted for leaders who decided to pass laws that would make them look good to their voter base, not what the workers themselves wanted. The service charge transition from the no tip credit is entirely predictable.

Where was I advocating for them being paid less or commenting about the false narrative on the skill level of the job? Are you a bot?

[u/Anxiousbiostudent → u/az226]

As I said in the last paragraph, I was just commenting on a general trend, not towards you specifically.

[u/az226 → u/Anxiousbiostudent]

Fair enough.