The Service Workers Who Needed More
No industry has seen more quitting during the last two years than leisure and hospitality, the Bureau of Labor Statistics category that covers hotels, restaurants, and many other areas of the service economy. These departures, memorialized over the summer of 2020 in the “We all quit” signs in storefronts and beside drive-thrus, drove up wages and opened the door to new benefits. Here, workers in a field that’s traditionally relied disproportionately on people of color accepting poverty wages explain why they’re striking, quitting, or seeking something better.
I Didn’t Want to Get COVID-19 at McDonald’s. So I Went on Strike.
My son was 5 at the time. One of the things I’ll never forget is him saying to me, “Mom, why don’t you hug me anymore?” I told him I couldn’t because my employer was being irresponsible.
The first person who got COVID was someone I’d worked right next to. I didn’t know she had COVID.
