In typical politics At fundraising dinners, huge sums of money are directed toward a candidate or a cause, perhaps not toward the waitstaff who are heaving trays of food and drinks. In an effort to make these typically low-paid workers the star of the event, One Fair Wage—an advocacy group representing hundreds of thousands of waitstaff and about 1,000 restaurant owners demanding a living wage for all—has recruited celebrities to do their jobs for an hour.
On Thursday night at Lady Hawk, a high-end Mediterranean restaurant next door to a boutique hotel in West Hollywood, guests settled in for a meal of grilled halloumi and shawarma, overseen by some familiar faces. Among them were Keegan-Michael Key, June Diane Raphael, Matt Bomer, Nichelle Turner, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Ike Barinholtz, Bozoma St. John, and the host of the event, Chrissy Teigen. They all had one thing in common: experience serving tables as young, unknowns. Teigen, for instance, once worked at Hooters, never knowing if her tips would be enough to get her through the next month. St. John, an entrepreneur and CEO who joined the cast of The Last Jedi, is now 18. The Real Housewives of Beverly HillsHe says Rolling Stone Her first job was as a hostess at Denny's – working the night shift.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs since then, and a lot of them have been very solid jobs, but the fight for equality and wages has never changed,” St. John says. She doesn’t think either party is saying enough about the importance of raising the minimum wage, but adds: “I don’t know that I’ve ever been a proponent of leaving it to politicians to do everything. It’s up to us as citizens and workers who interact with other workers to advocate for each other.”
Rafael recalls meeting Saru Jayaraman, a restaurant activist and president of One Fair Wage (and one of the evening’s hosts), around the time the #MeToo movement was taking off. She heard her talk about the possibility of a young woman new to a job in food service being sexually harassed, and she recalled her time handing out skewers of meat at a Brazilian steakhouse. “One night, this guy was trying to get my attention—I was walking by,” Rafael says. “He took a fork and stabbed my butt with it. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just said, ‘This is inappropriate.’ That’s the best I could come up with.”
Rafael jokes that she's not entirely sure how she'll behave at the table tonight, because in her steakhouse days, “I wasn't serving with a smile, I wasn't friendly, I wasn't engaging. So I'm trying to figure out, do I carry on with the waiter persona that I always maintained, which was so tough, because I hated doing it so much? I hated having to work for tips and rely on such a fickle industry.”
The mix of light humor and genuine indignation at the so-called “minimum wage” for tipped workers—some of whom make $2.13 an hour in base wage, the federal minimum—continues as the meal begins. California’s minimum wage is currently $16, and the state has eliminated the minimum wage for tipped workers. But $2.13 is still the minimum for restaurant workers in 15 states.
In her introduction, host Meena Harris, CEO of Phenomenal Media and niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke about ensuring that “everyone can feed their families and pay their bills.” Introducing the celebrity waiters, she said, “Don’t be easy on them, people,” explaining that they should experience “all the challenges and joys” of the job.
As I held a martini made by Barinholtz, who sits behind the bar doing his best to stir cocktails, someone pointed me to a table where other guests included a political strategist, organizers from a nonprofit that supports people getting out of prison, and, to my surprise, a professional psychologist. (She mentioned at one point that business is slower in the summer, but her clients start calling her again when the holidays come.) Teigen stopped to greet us but asked us not to order anything from her, describing her job as a waitress as “terrible.”
Eventually, Turner visits the restaurant to take more drink orders, and he has a very natural rapport with the table. The food, it turns out, is actually a fixed menu of shareable items—which is a good thing, because most stars aren’t used to that and seem too busy to remember which main course goes where. Naturally, it’s the usual waitstaff at Ladyhawk who bring the dishes. Ferguson is mocked when he arrives at the restaurant half an hour late for his shift.
While attending to customers, the celebrities deliver remarks to the audience. (One prominent speaker, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, didn’t have to put on an apron and walk around.) Key, always lively and energetic, seems particularly excited on stage. “Who remembers your first job, and how much it made?” he asks. “I bet there’s a good chance it was more than $2.13 an hour, which is more than millions and millions of Americans can say today. I read a statistic today that really shocked me: People who work in the service industry are twice as likely to receive food stamps as the rest of the U.S. workforce.” After a few more grim statistics, Key adds, “I wish I was kidding.”
Even if some of the logistical details of having actors and comedians wait tables in a crowded, busy restaurant were slightly manipulated for the purposes of this stunt, it is clear that Kay and others read their case. Copies of Jayaraman's book, One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Wages in AmericaFlyers are distributed to attendees describing how the idea of tipped workers emerged from the post-slavery era, when employers refused to pay newly freed blacks, and remains a discriminatory practice that affects people of color, immigrants, and women, as well as workers with disabilities, prisoners, and youth.
The money raised from this event will go to One Fair Wage’s efforts to motivate and empower these workers in the ongoing struggle for a living wage; the organization wants those who earn little money to be directly involved in securing a better economic future for themselves. The message is compelling, though at times it was difficult to reconcile working-class struggle with a fancy dining room and fine dining here in the affluent Los Angeles area. On the other hand, who am I to criticize? I wasn’t paying anything, which certainly didn’t bother me. But I was a little embarrassed not to leave a tip.
