Post: #1

From the hard-lessons-in-economics-for-liberals desk

Quote:Amazing Cafe in Pittsburgh permanently closed after workers participate in one-day strike


Sunday, May 21, Reyes and his co-workers had had enough. According to Reyes, after several weeks of the cafe being understaffed and management failing to deliver paychecks on time and to properly communicate with employees, the workers at Amazing Cafe staged a one-day strike in hopes of getting the owners to the negotiating table. They sent an email to the owners, Sean and Karen Conley, and posted a letter on the door on the night of May 20, explaining the reasoning behind their one-day strike and informing the owners that they would be back to work on May 22. The Conleys also own the adjoining Amazing Yoga studio in the South Side, as well as three other yoga studios in Allegheny County.

The letter read in part: “We are going on strike to address the rise in unfair working conditions and discrimination in restaurants across the country, including at Amazing Cafe. … We appreciate your efforts to create a fair work environment and ask for a meeting to discuss additional steps that can be taken to improve working conditions and protect workers who are the target of discrimination.”

Reyes says the strike was meant to put added pressure on the owners to meet with him and his co-workers to hash out workplace issues. “We decided to [strike] because no one would talk to us or try to come up with a solution to our work predicament,” says Reyes. “None of us are disgruntled workers. They just had to meet us face to face, we all just wanted to talk to them.”

However, Reyes says the owners responded that same day saying the restaurant would be closed indefinitely, and when Reyes and other co-workers arrived on May 22, the locks had been changed and were greeted by a sign that read, “We are closed. Sorry for the inconvenience, - Amazing Cafe.”
[...]
Reyes doesn’t buy the financially motivated reasoning for why the owners decided to close down. He says “business was consistently picking up” since he started working there two years ago. Reyes says on a typical weekend day, the restaurant would pull in at least $2000, and weekdays averaged between $500-$700 in sales.

“It is not financial, they are doing this because of the strike,” says Reyes.

To me, it sounds like the business was barely keeping itself afloat and was probably a money hole. I doubt they were making that much anyway.

Quote:Romanus says the workers delivered a “demand letter” to the owners at their Shadyside Amazing Yoga studio on May 23, and if they don’t comply within 48 hours, ROC Pittsburgh will help the workers file an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB. Romanus says that while this is the first time ROC Pittsburgh has seen an employer just “shut down” when accused of wrongdoing, this is not surprising behavior for restaurant owners.

“It tells you what employers think of the workers in the restaurant industry,” says Romanus. “They view them as disposable.”

Reyes says he had hoped to discuss several issues of workplace treatment at Amazing Cafe, including proper staffing, lunch breaks, improved communication between staff and management, and pay equity.

“All the girls make substantially less than I do, but they do just as much if not more work,” says Reyes, who is 30 and has been working in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager.

In other words: re-open an unproductive business, pay us more, or else!

TL;DR
-Restaurant is struggling to break even. Owners begin double dipping into employee salaries to pay expenses.
-Employees go on strike because they aren't getting paid on time, decide to bolster their argument by adding on some other demands and claim some gender pay gap.
-Restaurant owners say f*ck it and close up shop.

Must not have been that amazing...

Post: #2

Quote:“All the girls make substantially less than I do, but they do just as much if not more work,” says Reyes, who is 30 and has been working in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager.

You (sample size for male of 1) made more while doing less and there was a greater female sample size--looks like you were just overpaid. Instead of being grateful, you bit the hand that fed you.

Post: #3

Waiting generally attracts drama queens.

Post: #4

Ya I would have started looking elsewhere if my boss can't make payroll. Understaffing isn't bad if you know how to play it. I worked at pizza place several years ago. The boss realized I worked hard enough that he only needed me for weekday shifts. So instead of two $8 an hour cooks, I got paid $13.

Post: #5

This just reads like a mismanaged business that was rotten to the core.
They probably had too much staff for what they were bringing in revenue wise.
Unfortunately the employees ultimately paid the price for the owners irresponsibility.

Post: #6

Would be doubly amazing if the cafe reopened with robot staff.

Post: #7

If they're short on payroll it's a sure sign they're circling the drain. Don't take a day off to strike, take a day off to look for other jobs.

Post: #8

2k a day? Lol. A waiter selling 500 to 700 a shift (i think that's what they meant) isn't much either. When I was waiting tables, at a not-super-expensive restaurant, the average was at least 1200 in sales. The staff here seem dumb. The place was more than likely losing lots of money. Most restaurants do. The service industry also is flush with entitled pricks who think everyone owes them something so no surprise really.

Post: #9

As a restaurant owner, one of the bedrock rules of the game is to always pay your employees on time, even if you have to shirk on other things. If you can't do that, you might as well just close up shop and either declare Ch 7 or dissolve your company. The resulting legal and staff headaches of not making payroll - especially in a labor friendly state like CA/NY - will eat you alive. Still, it seems like the strike was the straw that broke the camel's back: no owner likes a mutiny on their hands, I know several family members who've closed their businesses down when their employees overplayed their hands like this.

Post: #10

Staff that takes money from the till or gives away product are thieves.

Owners who don't pay their staff are thieves.

I have no sympathy for the owners here. Let the labor laws string them up.

Post: #11

Any labor lawyers here? This story didn't sound all that shocking to me until the follow-up where they said the owners might be in violation of labor laws.

If I'm running a failing business and can't meet payroll, profits are down and expenses are up, the days are getting longer and longer as I have to work harder to stay afloat etc. etc., and then some employees go on strike, can't I just say fuck it, I give up, and close my business?

Maybe it has to do with the reason behind the closure? Perhaps closing due to a labor dispute is illegal but closing due to financial considerations is OK. I really don't know- seems like that would be a hard thing to prove. And what happens if everything is otherwise fine but I'm tired of the bullshit and close up shop and sell off the assets (equipment, maybe the property itself) for an early retirement.

If you can't do what you want with your own business, it would turn the job into a sort of prison sentence.

Post: #12

Small place - 800$ a day on average is barely enough to survive and eek out a small profit at least with US cost basis. The owners are likely paying rent for the location as well and the costs are not known.

This is the typical moronic liberal lack of understanding of how economics work.

And as a side-note - I am not a libertarian and I am for high wages for everyone. Yes - many workers in the US are extremely underpaid and the trend of falling real wages there began in the 1970s.

BUT - as I said - a local strike is not how it works. It does not work by leaving your borders open, by letting millions of low-skilled laborers exert constant wage pressure, by also letting companies hire and fire much cheaper and even illegal workers with little risk to their bottom line, it does not work by cucking for globalist corporations and globalist politicians like Hillary Clinton.

It works the Swiss way:

+ closed borders
+ suicidal super-high fines for any company found hiring a worker illegally (will bankrupt most companies as they fine you 3 years wages and extra just for one worker that they caught working on day)
+ strong country-wide unions that negotiate with the entire industry on a minimum wage that is dependent on the sector and industry. You cannot go on a strike just as one restaurant or cafe - you have to take a logical approach as an entire country.
+ Also the joint approach works only when ALL INDUSTRIES IN THE COUNTRY get relatively high wages. Restaurant workers for example get higher wages than retail ones, but even retail workers are satisfied in Switzerland. Industry/manual workers get 2-3 times more and intellectuals/highly qualified even more.

You cannot change it by squeezing out one struggling owner, you could not even squeeze Starbucks. You have to start squeezing at the top by electing a shitlord, closing all borders, creating strong American unions again, imposing high-tariffs, throwing out illegals, start producing in the US etc. Then can you pay high wages at restaurants, because the local mechanic apprentice also gets paid more.

This short-sighted approach led to this moronic Bernie support - give everyone bullshit free college education instead of asking, why college is so expensive and if there are even the jobs there to study, and what the fuck is the reason for studying gender studies crap?

Ah well - Millennial bullshit economic activism leads to more bullshit.

Post: #13

Not exactly the same but this thread reminded me of

1) yelp employee complains about wage
/thread-53956.html

2) interns complain about dress code
/thread-56740.html