Rep. Ocasio-Cortez returns to bartending to promote fair wages

[demmiblue]

Source: Reuters



NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took lunch orders, served pizza and rocked the cocktail shaker on Friday to promote increased wages for restaurant servers and other tipped workers.

The New York Democrat and media sensation, who famously worked as a bartender before getting elected to Congress last year, brought first-hand experience to the debate over the proposed “Raise the Wage Act,” which would raise the U.S. minimum wage to $15 an hour and guarantee that minimum for tipped employees.

U.S. law exempts restaurants, nail salons and car washes from paying their tipped staff the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, instead creating a “tip credit” of up to $5.12 per hour that allows them to pay as little as $2.13 per hour on the books.

“Any job that pays $2.13 per hour is not a job, it is indentured servitude,” Ocasio-Cortez told restaurant workers, customers and reporters at the Queensboro Restaurant in her New York City district, in a reference to the lowest possible wage before tips.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-ocasio-cortez-idUSKCN1T12R4?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5cf1c7392866ef00011cff1a&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

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Link to tweet

[flotsam]

1. Holy Fuck!

My tired old eyes never thought they would see a member of congress actually working like the other 350 million of us have to!

[Judi Lynn]

4. Do you remember seeing publicity photos of Speaker Paul Ryan pretending to be washing dishes

in a staged photo shoot in a restaurant?

That was memorable. Apparently it didn't hurt his record a bit when it was discovered it was all bogus.







AOC, on the other hand is the real deal. You can't fake what she did!

[flotsam]

5. I've worked in restaurants

and I know exactly what a clean apron means in terms of the person wearing it:they ain't doing shit. You ever see a dishwasher with a dry apron?

[TalenaGor]

7. and his watch still on lol

[cstanleytech]

11. Oh they could have faked that to but they probably were also trying to get the message out

that its not really a hard or dirty job to work in a kitchen thus no need to pay well for it and a dirty apron would have exposed the lie.

[RandiFan1290]

16. I remember that

They basically forced their way in after closing and insisted they let them wash some clean dishes for their photo op.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. K & R!

[Xipe Totec]

3. #bad_hembra nt

[stillcool]

6. She never fails to impress...

and also offers a glimmer of hope.

[earthshine]

8. I think she's awesome ...

.. and a damn good politician, too.

[GETPLANING]

9. She is a total badass

[cstanleytech]

10. These days just about every retail job including ones with companies like Publix are close to

indentured servitude as the employees struggle from week to week just to pay the basic bills and are barely keeping their heads above water.
The companies like to cry poor mouth though and claim they cannot afford to pay better but if that was true then why then back 45+ years was the middle class a larger portion of the population?
No, what really has happened is the money they used to pay is being siphoned off to pay the higher ups as well as the wealthy that own most of the stock dividends but its leaving the workers out in the cold having to struggle.

[calimary]

12. And a lot of these workers are on their feet all day, and

working with people - either fellow staffers or the public who might be a bit... uh... unruly shall we say. Conditions, equipment, and hours aren’t always the best, the stress can be murder, and the benefits might not be that great, either.

They work hard for the money.

[cstanleytech]

13. Yup, thats why on the few occasions that I can afford to do take out I

try to include a tip of some sort if I can afford it as its the fair thing to do.

[DeminPennswoods]

14. A hard job for sure

It's why I always tip above 15% when I go out to eat or drink.

[calimary]

15. I always try to overtip. I waited tables in college.

I got a sense of how hard a job it was. Student coffee house. Students usually were too poor to tip. But then some of their parents would come in and be loud, demanding, and obnoxious, and you’d run your legs off to accommodate them, and then they’d leave nothing.

[Blue_Tires]

17. k+r