Overworked and Underpaid: Examining Food Industry Workers in the Hudson Valley
Marist College senior Diego Dorronsoro grew up close to the restaurant business. His father, Rircardo, opened up Jalapeños Grill in Walpole, MA in 2004 and has operated the establishment ever since. When Dorronsoro left his hometown to attend Marist, he looked for a taste of home when it came to a part-time job.
In 2019, he landed one as a server at Darby O’Gill’s, a restaurant just a few miles north of Marist’s campus. He was continued to work there throughout his time in college, eventually taking on bartending duties as well. But recently, that taste of home has been harder to swallow. The service labor shortage has left Darby O’Gills occasionally understaffed on Sundays, when Dorronsoro works.
“We would just be super busy and we just didn’t have enough servers or waiters on hand to meet the needs of all the customers,” Dorronsoro said. “So, it ultimately would result in me running around like crazy trying to cover stations that are meant for three people just by myself.”
The extra effort goes unappreciated by customers who get upset that their order isn’t arriving fast enough, which adds to the stress of the job even though some customers are understanding of the workers’ dilemma. Adjusting to the pace required to serve all of their patrons has been difficult. Dorronsoro says that one tweak that has streamlined the process has been to have bartenders make drinks for servers rather than have servers make their own, allowing them to “be more in charge of the floor.”
While the job has become more strenuous, Dorronsoro says that those who still work have become closer. The reliability among the common group of servers has brought them together and earned the appreciation of their manager. A stronger sense of community among workers won’t be enough to address the labor shortage, though.
“Within Dutchess County, workers are demanding more justice,” said Jessica Treybick, the Executive Vice President of the Dutchess County Central Labor Council and a 14-year member of the Office and Professional Employees International Union. As a long-time organizer of efforts to improve working conditions, the issue of improving working conditions is most familiar.
Treybick explained that workers are seeking to increase their wages to an amount that can fully sustain their lives. “Right now, I think that a lot of people are still living in poverty due to those wages,” she said. “There’s not really jobs out there to facilitate them and sustain their life because of the cost of living in Dutchess County.” Covid-related health concerns made the work environment even more fraught.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, working in the food industry was already difficult. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator, the typical annual salary for a food preparation and serving related job in Dutchess County is $29,443, the lowest amount of all 22 occupation categories.
Based on living expenses, the calculator suggests that the required annual income before taxes for a single adult living in the county with no children is $35,577. Even in the most minuscule living situation, the average salary is not a livable one. Adding kids and living with another person only requires more income, exacerbating the issue with wages for the full-time food industry workforce.
Raising the minimum wage is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Treybick hopes that a conversation between labor organizations and restaurants will result in livable wages for Dutchess County workers. “I think that is the biggest problem right now,” she said of unlivable wages.
Nothing is expected to change without a firm solution that brings workers back to work. Dorronsoro will continue to shoulder a bigger workload. Treybick will work to help workforce organization efforts and the members of her union while assisting workers not in unions by trying to find them one.
Amidst restaurants shortening hours of operation and relying more on overworked workers to compensate for the shortage of labor, the untenability of the situation grows by the day.
