POLITICS
Union Stations
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COLLECTIVE ACTION AND CAPITALISM’S REACTION IN HOSPITALITY By Liz Cook
t wasn’t a worker shortage, it was a wage shortage. Or maybe it was a work ethic shortage. People didn’t want to work anymore, or people didn’t want to work for crummy employers anymore. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The explanations differed, depending on who you talked to, but the problem remained the same: nearly every bar or restaurant in town was short-staffed. The staffing crunch in the hospitality industry isn’t new—we started covering it almost five years ago. But the pandemic
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THE PITCH | March 2022 | THEPITCHKC.COM
rubbed fresh salt on an old wound. Many workers who were laid off during the first shutdown orders in March 2020 haven’t returned to the industry. Those who weren’t laid off grew increasingly frustrated with poor working conditions and combative customers, and many left the industry voluntarily. Two years into the pandemic, the problem seems to only be getting worse. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, nearly 1 million leisure and hospitality workers quit their jobs in November 2021—
the highest number recorded in the history of the series. As businesses compete to attract a shrinking pool of workers, wages are starting to tick up. Benefits such as health insurance and 401(k)s remain scarce in the hospitality industry, but they’re becoming more common. The balance of power is shifting. This month, we’re digging into how that shift might reshape the local hospitality industry—and how it already has.
Unions are gaining ground (with a long way to go) “The labor shortage is employer-created and has been a long time coming,” says
“The labor shortage is employer-created and has been a long time coming.” Chris Fielder, a barista at the Plaza Starbucks. Fielder is a member of the organizing committee at the Plaza store, one of two metro Starbucks that filed for union elections last month (the other is in Overland
