Waffle House Workers Challenge the Southern Economy

[Omaha Steve]

One union chips away at the vestiges of Jim Crow–era labor policies.

by Macy Stacher

July 26, 2024

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-07-26-waffle-house-workers-challenge-southern-economy/


Isabella Volmert/AP Photo
In May, nearly a year after workers went on strike over workplace safety concerns and low wages, Waffle House CEO Joe Rogers III announced a series of nationwide wage hikes.

The resurgent labor movement’s slate of wins of the past year have energized workers across the United States—even in the fiercely anti-union South and least-unionized industries. In this uniquely hostile terrain for organized labor, service workers and labor organizers are looking beyond the standard union drive to build worker power in the South—and workers at the Waffle House restaurant chain have emerged as key figures in the fight for higher wages and better working conditions.

The Union of Southern Service Workers, a nontraditional cross-sector union, is organizing to put an end to the mandatory meal deduction policy at Waffle House, a diner-style restaurant chain and mainstay of Southern culture. The chain serves affordable comfort food and a helping of hospitality at around 2,000 locations across 25 states found primarily in the South. In recent years, Waffle House has become infamous for its violent customer brawls on social media and round-the-clock service through all but the most severe hurricanes, an image built at their low-wage workers’ expense. Waffle House also beats out competitors like IHOP and Cracker Barrel in the race to the bottom for the greatest share of employees earning under $10 an hour.

When employees have brought their concerns regarding reports of missing paychecks and repeated, sometimes fatal, incidents of armed robberies to the company’s attention, corporate gave them the runaround, locked them out of the Atlanta headquarters, and tossed out 450 worker-signed petitions.

Without an avenue for company-approved recourse, a handful of workers in Columbia, South Carolina, began a series of concerted worker actions with a walkout last July, to demand an end to a company policy that forces workers to purchase a Waffle House meal, each shift, regardless of whether it’s cooked or eaten. The mandatory meal deduction costs Waffle House workers $30 million in wages every year and at least $3 per worker every shift, adding to the laundry list of costs saddling food-insecure service workers.

FULL story at link above.