The Job that Almost Always Gets You Harassed: Top Stories for Wednesday

SWEETIE PIE – It's a sobering stat for the industry: an overwhelming majority of women, as well as most men, in the restaurant business experience sexual harassment at work. The unwanted attention comes from customers (59 percent of women, 50 percent of men experience it at least monthly), coworkers (74 percent of women, 58 percent of men) and management (66, 58). That's according to a report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center, a workers' organization that supports paying restaurant workers at or above the federal minimum wage, and the women's group Forward Together. (So yes, there's an agenda behind those findings. But anyone who's ever worked, or even just eaten, at a restaurant will see the truth to them.)

The abuse is mostly verbal, in the form of teasing, jokes and unwanted advances. One explanation given is that the restaurant business is just a "highly sexualized industry:" it's par for the course for hostesses and waitresses and that explains why more than half of polled women found the inappropriate behavior "normal". Some even "fun." (For nearly half, it's also "scary or unwanted," and for 60 percent "uncomfortable.") But that's like saying "it's like this just because it is."

Digging deeper, ROC looked at the effect of the tipping system: it's hard to equate a hand on the butt with a slap in the face or to tell an inappropriate customer to quit it when your rent money depends on their leaving the restaurant satisfied. The numbers show that the more a woman relies on tips, the more likely she is to be harassed. One server recounted in a focus group:

“I said to myself, I can’t be putting up with this, let me talk
to my boss about it. I was kind of surprised by what my boss
said… he said, ‘well, those people pay a lot of money for our
services and, I mean, would it hurt to smile a little bit, be a
little bit more friendly to them?’ And I was blown away.”

In a great write-up of the report, The Daily Beast's Brandy Zadrozny notes another worrisome element: the restaurant industry employs many teens. It's where they learn what to expect from the working world...

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DROPPED – Hopefully not unaware of the irony, a few days after announcing it intends to take a bite out of the health insurance market (not providing it but helping choose and enroll in it), Walmart is cutting health insurance benefits for up to 30,000 part-time workers and raising premiums for its other employees. The Wall Street Journal breaks it down:

On Tuesday, Wal-Mart said it would drop coverage beginning Jan. 1 for existing workers who were grandfathered into the company’s health plan. Now, only those part-timers working 30 to 34 hours a week will qualify for the company’s health coverage.

Wal-Mart also is raising premiums for all workers next year. About 40% of enrolled workers are on its least expensive and most popular plan and will now pay $21.90 per two-week pay period, a 20% increase, starting Jan. 1. Across all three plans, Wal-Mart said it estimates workers will pay an additional $10 a pay period. The average Wal-Mart hourly worker earns $11.81 an hour. ( Read the full story.)

Walmart explains the decision is motivated by cost, with its healthcare bill for 2014 expected to rise by $500 million more than forecast. As the WSJ notes, fall is when US companies typically announce changes to their insurance policies and this fall is the first one since they've been able to fully asses the impact of Obamacare changes. So we may still expect similar announcements from other corporations. At least dropped employees now know what retailer can help...

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#1 – This is a claim that often makes headline, as one stat after the other switches side: China has overtaken the US as the world's biggest economy. This time it's by purchasing power-adjusted GDP as measured by the International Monetary Fund, a stat spotted by the Financial Times (registration required). By year's end, China will account for 16.48% of the world's purchasing power-adjusted GDP and the US just 16.28%. Of course, if you're counting raw or per capita value, the US still has some time at the top of the class.

Photo: Hooters/Flickr