New studies accuse tips and smiley service of fueling sexual harassment

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New research has linked the high incidence of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry to a combination of the company’s two long-standing traditions: encouraging employees to smile and making waiters dependent on tips for a lifetime. much of their compensation.

The results come from two related studies conducted by researchers affiliated with three universities. The academics’ findings are likely to fuel claims by labor advocates that restaurants should be denied the legal right to count waiter tips in calculating the wages owed to them. Groups like union-backed One Fair Wage are pushing the federal government to end the so-called nationwide tip credit. The concession to employers is already prohibited in seven states.

The Biden administration has repeatedly shown support for the removal of tip credit by federal law, a change that would dramatically increase labor costs for restaurant employers who are already raising their pay scales due to serious recruitment difficulties as the pandemic subsides.

The new interconnected studies were jointly conducted by researchers from the University of Notre Dame, Pennsylvania State University, and Frances Emlyon Business School. They validate to some extent the findings of previous research by labor rights advocates, but in much less inflammatory language.

A 2018 report from Restaurants Opportunity Centers, for example, found the main reason for harassment from waiters was their addiction to tips. He also lambasted the industry’s reliance on tips as being sexist, as the majority of waiters are women.

Notre Dame-led research breaks new ground by basing its findings on customer perspectives as well as server memories and perceptions.

First, the team asked 92 servers for information about their share of income from tips; whether their employers expect them to adopt a smiley and pleasant attitude; what power they think they can wield against guests acting inappropriately; and whether they have been sexually harassed at work. Sixty-six percent said they had experienced inappropriate behavior in the past six months.

In the second study, 229 men were recruited to provide the customer perspective. Participants were served by waitresses with various facial expressions. The men were told of their waiters’ reliance on tips for their livelihood, the degree varying for comparison.

The men were then asked to what extent they felt empowered to take liberties with the maids.

Our conclusions for each [study] were the same employees who rely on tips face more sexual harassment, but only when they are required to engage in service with a smile, said Timothy Kundro, assistant professor of management and organization at Our Ladies Mendoza College of Business. He was the lead author of the study.

The dependence of service employees on tips and user-friendly signage requirements causes customers to feel an increased sense of power that can lead them to engage in sexual harassment, Kundro concluded in a prepared statement.

The restaurant industry has a long standing reputation as a business with a high incidence of sexual harassment. Restaurant workers report more sexual harassment complaints than employees in any other U.S. industry, according to data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. However, the industry is also the country’s second largest private sector employer, behind healthcare.

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