by eric.shaw » Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:26 pm
Upon further reflections I think perhaps this thread should be renamed "How customers get cooks to work 12-hour days..."
Given some of the responses, it seems more appropriate. I don't think most restaurant operators want to be either paying their employees loads of overtime or risking litigation from using tactics like shift pay, and asking employees to work many hours off the clock. I would hope, at least, that most business owners want to take care of their staff, those who in turn take care of their customers.
The biggest motivator to make this change, however, comes not from the owners themselves, but from their demanding customers. They want more quality and more quantity, and they also want to pay less and less. How many excellent restaurants get trashed because people believe their portions are too small, and therefore overpriced? When in fact it is really just the fair price of paying for the kind of quality we have come to expect from a fine dining (or even causal these days) establishment.
Take a restaurant like Alinea, for example, a meal you would easily pay $500+ per person (if you want wine, and trust me you do) and in return you will get one of the most amazing 14-20 course meals of your life. You might imagine that this is enough to pay their cooks quite well. In reality, though, an experience like that requires the manpower of dozens of cooks to produce. So then it may be difficult, but also unsurprising, to hear that the 25 line cooks they have working 80 hours a week, are actually making minimum wage.
What can we do to change this? I think we vote with our feet. We support businesses with more generous policies for their cooks (not just better wages, but also benefits and maybe some paid sick/vacation days, things many take for granted), and we boycott those who don't. In this society, money is the only way to change the status quo. And while it may seem selfish of people like me to desire, to ask for things like this to happen, the consequences aren't just for the betterment of those like myself, it is actually better for you too! Happy motivated cooks, make much tastier food than sad beaten down ones.