Coffee, Tea, or Justice?

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Coffee, Tea, or Justice?

Even though my favorite waitress owns her little café’ I always tip her anyway – I know she’s going to take that bit of money and do some good for others with it.

Waitresses in the corporate / franchise / world along the interstate don’t own their own cafes, though, and they’re not paid minimum wage.

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (http://www.dol.gov/wb/faq26.htm), employees in occupations where tips are customary and who receive more than $30 (BIG money) a month in tips can legally be paid as little as $2.13 an hour.

How’s that for fair labor standards, eh?

Recently I breakfasted at a joint which used to belong to a national franchise who then sold it to another national franchise with the proviso that the employees got to keep their jobs. And the new franchise did keep the help – after reducing their wages.

The first change in the place was obvious – the nice lady who used to greet customers cheerfully had been replaced with two young persons who ignored customers sullenly. The cheerful former head waitress / greeter, a long-time employee, was relegated to the back and reduced in pay and status in gratitude for her years of loyal service.

Employers reasonably expect loyalty from employees, but shouldn’t that work both ways?

The fat boys on midday radio would no doubt airily suggest that the humiliated waitresses should find new jobs. How easy it is to say! But we can’t all be N.C.I.S. guys or Dr. House. Neither the President nor a long-haul trucker makes his own coffee, and the travelling public are no longer permitted to camp out, build a campfire, and discharge firearms at critters to cook up for supper. All of us dine out occasionally, and that means we don’t go to the café kitchen and help ourselves. Waiters and waitresses are a big part of our economy and our lives, and we show our respect for them by not paying them.

Some folks claim that the minimum wage is a bad idea. I dunno. I gather that the people who think the minimum wage should be abolished aren’t themselves on minimum wage. I do know that there are employers who would squeeze employees, not that metaphorical penny. But I really don’t know whether or not the minimum wage is a good idea.

But since this nation does in fact require a minimum wage under the law, why isn’t the law extended to all as mandated by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution? The fantasy that an employee’s tips will equal the minimum wage is mere speculation, and speculation is not justice.

A cute young waitress shorting out the pacemakers of well-to-do old men in a high-Euro restaurant may well draw a great deal in tips, but cute is not a career option; time terminates cute. To consider the tips-income of a very few waitresses in a very few expensive restaurants and clubs and then to suppose that such is the income of all waiters and waitresses is an inexcusable cruelty that even a 19th-century timber baron might find shabby.

How can it be that in the 21st century equal protection under the law is still denied to some American citizens?

The laborer is worth of his – or her – hire. The Alice or Flo or Vera or Belle or Jolene who brings you that hot, comforting cup of coffee in the middle of the night when you still have miles to go before you sleep (cf Robert Frost) is a real American who deserves a fair deal.

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