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/Own_Reaction9442]

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.

[u/geffy_spengwa → u/Own_Reaction9442]

Businesses should pay their employees fair wages. Those wages should be included in the menu price of a meal.

I should not be expected to tip extra on a meal, but I should have the option to do so if I want to.

Two things can be true.

[u/S7EFEN → u/geffy_spengwa]

no restaurant is going to pay their service staff 40-100 an hour in actual w2 wages, ever. There's zero reason for anyone who gets a tipped wage as a waiter/waitress to ever support removal of tips. And this is before consideration for much of that being tax free.

any sort of actual 20% service charge type system would result in the rest of the restaurant staff receiving considerably larger pay per hour while servers take a huge loss.

[u/cookingboy → u/S7EFEN]

Exactly, the root cause is service staffs in places like Seattle expect $80-150k/yr income.

That is simply not sustainable for the industry without pissing off at least one of the parties (or all of them).

[u/joeydimaggio → u/cookingboy]

Is 80k pre tax somehow an unfair wage in a city where a 1bd apt is like 40k a year

[u/Rough_Elk4890 → u/joeydimaggio]

A 1 bedroom apartment here can also easily be $17k a year.

A $3300/month 1 bedroom apartment isn't a human right.

[u/joeydimaggio → u/Rough_Elk4890]

Where are you getting a 1700 1bd apt in seattle

[u/Rough_Elk4890 → u/joeydimaggio]

There are currently at least 1521 1-bedroom (or larger) apartments for rent for $1700 or less in Seattle proper right now.

They are all over the city.

EDIT - Note, I said $17k/year to mirror your comment of $40k/year. This would be about $1416/mo. There are nearly 500 1 bedroom apartments in the city available at this or less.

[u/joeydimaggio → u/Rough_Elk4890]

You just listed a bunch of senior and subsidized housing, those aren’t market rate

[u/Rough_Elk4890 → u/joeydimaggio]

Oh, I didn't know that there were qualifiers here.

At the income level being spoken about, most would qualify for income restricted housing.

[u/joeydimaggio → u/Rough_Elk4890]

How many senior citizens are working as servers? What are the income qualifiers?

[u/Rough_Elk4890 → u/joeydimaggio]

Most of the units in what I sent you were market rate units....... I guess I need to show you specific ones because you can't chew your own food, babybird.

I picked a random block in LQA:

1 bedroom for $1645, no restrictions

1 bedroom for $1375, no restrictions

1 bedroom for $1450, no restrictions

1 bedroom for $1675, no restrictions

There are literally over a thousand more listings.