For several years, our New York wage and hour lawyers have been on the vanguard of a movement agitating for better treatment and fairer pay for restaurant workers. New reports about recent claims against McDonald’s suggest that discrimination, harassment, and wage and hour violations may be even more widespread in the industry than critics have suspected.
The fast food industry is an enormous job engine, currently responsible for 9% of private sector jobs in the U.S., employing 5.5 million women and 5.1 million men. A recent Mother Jones piece investigating the restaurant industry, based in part on information from the Economic Policy Institute, revealed some shocking statistics:
- Median wage for all forms of payment (tip, tipshare, and flat rate) has stalled at $10/hour for the last 15 years. Non-restaurant U.S. workers, meanwhile, earn a median wage of $18.