Who’s Actually Leading the Hospitality Industry in Labor and Wage Issues?
February 25th, 2020, about 2 weeks before the San Francisco Bay Area was put under shelter-in-place orders, I was stuffed into the tiny closet that my partner and I turned into a “studio” with two other people. Which seems completely bizarre now, but it didn’t feel so at the time. As part of season two of my podcast Copper & Heat, I was talking to Chef Preeti Mistry and Chef Reem Assil about how they have addressed labor and wage issues in their restaurants. Both of them are not only chefs, but activists in the restaurant industry and have been incredibly vocal about the racism, sexism, and classism that exists and that was why I wanted to talk with them (in the episode below).
This might be the understatement of the year, but the pandemic has been really rough for the restaurant industry. According to the National Restaurant Association, restaurant workers have been the most affected by the pandemic with 2 out of 3 restaurant workers (over 8 million) having lost their job. 40 percent of restaurants are closed. Everybody in the industry is freaking out, and rightfully so, about what the future looks like. Because the entire economic and social system our industry is built on is crumbling.
In August, the big food industry news was that the James Beard Awards were cancelled “as substantial and sustained upheaval in the community has created an environment in which the Foundation believes the assignment of Awards will do little to further the industry in its current uphill battle.” This came days after my former boss, Chef David Kinch, announced that he would be removing his name from consideration for the award for Outstanding Chef, an award he’s been a semifinalist for for 8 years in a row (minus 2015). He also said because it did “not feel right in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, and the devastation it pressed upon our chosen metier and industry.” He continued to say that this is the restaurant industry “reset button” and spoke to the issues of gender and racial inequality.
I’m glad he made this statement. Listening back to an interview that I did with him three years ago, the fact that he’s acknowledging the issues is different than what I heard then. This is good. People should be allowed the space to grow and learn and change their mind. However, this did get me thinking about some important questions: who are we looking to as leaders as we try to reset and rebuild our industry? And who are the people that have been leading the way on these issues, even before the pandemic?
Which brings me back to Preeti & Reem and the conversation we had back in February 2020.
Preeti publicly called Kinch out on their Twitter saying, “When I said the same thing 3 years ago in the NYT, Kinch had to send me a DM calling me “Shameful” for pointing out these exact inequalities he’s about to be Hero-fied for.”
People are allowed to learn, change their minds, and grow. In fact, we need people to be doing that, and now is as good a time as any. It is encouraging to see many prominent chefs in the industry speaking out about systemic issues that have been lurking under the surface of the restaurant industry. However, there are people who have been rethinking, reimagining, and redefining what a restaurant can be well before the pandemic and societal upheaval made these issues popular to talk about. They were called “shameful” like Preeti said, or like Reem, they received hate mail and death threats. They received less media attention, less investor funding, and put their own livelihood and businesses on the line to try to push real, tangible change. So, when we glorify a chef for acknowledging the systems of oppression that they have profited off of for decades, it’s a slap in the face.
It took us 7 months to release the episode I was working on with Reem and Preeti (snafus because of the pandemic) and it took me 5 months before I could bring myself to listen back to the conversation. But as I did, I couldn’t help but come away feeling really hopeful. They have been fighting against the grain to push the industry forward for years and they will keep pushing. Like Reem said on Twitter when we finally released the episode,
“ We continue to tackle the issues. One day at a time. Like we always have been :)”
So as we’re looking forward, trying to figure out our next moves to make the industry better, let’s stop and listen to the real leaders. The women and people of color who have been doing the work for years.
