Jared Jacoby 1

Jared Jacoby

Advanced Newsgathering

Dr. Kotchemidova

October 17, 2019

Hard Work – Little Pay: Alabama Restaurant Workers

Are restaurant servers in Alabama receiving enough pay for the hours and conditions they

work with?

Restaurant waitress Savannah Havens discussed about her physically and emotionally

draining job in Saraland in an interview. She spent a lot time constantly taking care of customers

and serving table to table for 7 hours. After an exhausting week of waiting tables, she received a

paycheck worth less than $20.

Havens stated that she was only paid somewhere around $2 or $3 an hour and that it was,

“Not enough that you would actually get much of a check after taxes.” She even had to give a

percentage of the tips to the hostess and bartenders.

Without counting tips, the median percentile wage for waiters and waitresses is $10.01 an

hour while the tenth percentile wage is $8.27 an hour according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics. However, Havens did not get paid even close to that amount. She had to rely on tips to

make up for the small wages.

With the physical demands and the long hours for the job, Havens felt that she was not

given nearly enough for her job. Even if she just wanted to have some extra money for herself,

she still could not get much out of this job because of the lack of pay. However, waiters and

waitresses are not the only servers that suffered difficult jobs at restaurants.
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A senior at Spring Hill College recalled her job as a hostess at a Chili’s Grill and Bar in

Mobile during her interview. She summed up her experience with, “I worked full time hours for

part time pay.” She was only paid $7.50 an hour after working 30 hours a week. She explained

how these hours interfered with her school time because they would make her work from early in

the afternoon to 11 p.m. regardless of what was happening with her classes.

These wages were also below the tenth of percentile wages according to the U.S. Bureau

of Labor Statistics. The median hourly wage for hosts and hostesses is $10.06 and tenth of the

percentile wage is $8.28 an hour. The Chili’s hostess got paid below 10 percent according to

these statistics, which shows how underpaid she was despite working nearly 40 hours a week.

She continued by saying how her employers acted more like bosses than leaders and how

they treated her poorly. They ignored her school hours kept her as late as possible despite the fact

that she told them that she needed time to focus on school according to her. She recalled one

night where they did not allow her to take a break during a double shift from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The college senior who needed the money for school became miserable because of the

hours and conditions of her job as a hostess. She disliked her job so much, she insisted that she

never wants to work at another restaurant again. She also felt that the job had a negative impact

on her grades because of how much it wore her out from studying or writing.

Another student at Spring Hill College explained how she worked as an assistant

manager at a restaurant that her family owns in Foley in her interview. She stated that the servers

only got paid $2.75 an hour. That was less than the Chili’s restaurant, where the former hostess

stated that the servers there got $3.25 an hour.

Even someone who had a positive experience at her job at a family-owned restaurant

admitted that the servers were payed below three dollars. It shows how restaurant managers
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overlook this issue where lower position workers barely get enough money for bills and not

enough to support themselves.

The minimum wage for regular jobs in Alabama is $7.25 an hour according to Raise the

Minimum Wage. The minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13. While all of the examples from

the interviews got paid at least minimum wage, their pay was still below the minimum wage of

other states because Alabama has a significantly lower minimum wage than several states.

These low wages for waiters and waitress have remained the same since 1991 according

to the Time article, “Low Wages, Sexual Harassment and Unreliable Tips”. This Is Life in

America’s Booming Service Industry. The article explained that President Bill Clinton signed

legislation that halted the wage for tipped workers in 1996. This action prevented wages from

increasing, thus making it even harder for people in the profession to make a living.

With the statistics from websites and the experiences from the interviewees, restaurant

workers struggle to make a living with these low wages. Even as a part-time job, it does not

satisfy the workers since the hours of work tire out those who want to have fun during their time

off or those who need to study for school. As a result, these jobs do more harm than good to the

employees and discourage them from other restaurant jobs.