One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America

A powerful expos of how the tipping system has been used to exploit immigrant workers, from the nationally renowned activist and acclaimed author of Behind the Kitchen Door "No one has done more to move forward the rights of food and restaurant workers than Saru Jayaraman." --Mark Bittman, Author of Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix and A Bone to Pick Six million workers in America are tipped workers, relying on a subminimum wage and the whims of customers to feed themselves and their families. Over a million of them are immigrants, and the unpredictability of tips combined with the unpredictability of life as an immigrant creates an unstable, uncertain future. The restaurant industry has led the way in exploiting tipped workers, its incredible growth over the past few decades failing to translate to greater prosperity for most of the people it employs--many of them vulnerable immigrants. Other industries have gotten in on the act, too, including nail salons and car washes. And as the service sector moves online, tech companies, such as DoorDash, Uber, and Lyft are capitalizing on the tipping loophole to avoid paying workers a minimum wage. All of these industries are profiting off immigration policy that allows employers to keep the immigrant workers they so desperately need, but also keep them in fear of speaking up. Acclaimed author and restaurant activist Saru Jayaraman and social scientist Dr. Te filo Reyes draw on hundreds of interviews to show how the subminimum wage and our broken immigration system combine to exploit millions of Americans. Tipped points to a new future in which immigrants are welcome and the service sector can prosper with, not off of, its immigrant workforce.

• | Author: Saru Jayaraman
• | Publisher: The New Press
• | Publication Date: October 19, 2021
• | Number of Pages: 256 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1620975335
• | ISBN-13: 9781620975336