Employees across five restaurants owned by two prominent DC restaurateurs, Stephen Starr and Ashok Bajaj, have announced plans to unionize. They are seeking better pay, more predictable hours, and increased respect from management. Workers allege instances of unfair treatment and cultural insensitivity, hoping unionization will create a more equitable work environment.
Employees celebrate at Le Diplomate yesterday after informing managers of their intent to unionize. Photograph courtesy Unite Here Local 25.
Neither Starr Restaurants nor Bajaj’s Knightsbridge Restaurant Group immediately said whether they would voluntarily recognize the unions. At Le Diplomate, Zuniga says he’s witnessed some discrepancies in how immigrants or those with accents are talked to and treated by management. One of his colleagues, Lorena Carrillo López, a line cook, says about six months ago her son and daughter, who’s pregnant, were in a car accident, and her daughter was sent to the hospital in an ambulance.
“We don’t get definite answers as a staff about what our schedules are going to look like,” Hartmann says. “here have been weeks where I’ve been scheduled 48 hours, and then the next week, I’ll be scheduled 24 hours,” Hartmann says. She says she was told the hours would “average out,” but “I don’t know that. I can’t see the math for that. And I also don’t control my schedule.”
Zavala says the way he and his colleagues are treated was another factor driving their desire to unionize. He says he often acts as translator for the staff’s many Spanish speakers, and he recalls helping one colleague communicate that she couldn’t make it to work one day when she wasn’t able to find a babysitter. He says the manager told him to tell the employee that if she didn’t come into work, she’d be fired.
Business Unionization Restaurant Workers Wages Labor Rights DC Restaurants
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