Close the shops, keep the wages!
Hannah – Philadelphia, PA
I am a barista at a local coffee shop in Philadelphia. As coronavirus started spreading through Philly, my coworkers and I started wondering what our boss’s reaction would be: Would we close? Would our hours be cut? What health and safety policies would be put in place? Would we be paid?
Casually our boss started telling us to wash our hands, sanitize all surfaces customers touch, and not touch our faces. Eventually they sent a short paragraph with the bare minimum health guidelines to all employees. Policy seems to change every day, with no clear communication to workers. First we were sanitizing everything touched. Now customers are not allowed to touch anything, meaning we put milk and sugar in their drinks for them. Workers are the ones at risk by interacting with customers and touching surfaces while the bosses continue to sit in the back and make decisions that affect us and not them.
The owner is doing everything possible to stay open. As city and state law changes, there are smaller qualifications for stores to stay open. Right now in Philadelphia, only “life sustaining” businesses are supposed to be open, but somehow my shop has squeezed itself into the “convenience store” classification in order to stay open. We sell coffee and a handful of pastries, which does not seem life sustaining to me!
It is clear their main goal is to stay open and to make a profit, without consideration of what workers want or what is safe for us. There is no communication of a long term plan. There is no communication as shifts are changed multiple times a day, as hours the shop is open changes, and as we lose hours and pay. My coworkers and I are scared every day we go into work. Although we are sanitizing as much as possible, wearing gloves, and taking other precautions, there is a huge amount of risk while being in contact with customers every day. We continue to go to work through these conditions because we need a stable paycheck.
Some coffee shop workers are using mutual aid as a solution to lost pay. They are setting up Venmo accounts so customers can send “virtual tips.” In the short term, this can help tide over the baristas so they can pay their bills in the absence of normal paychecks. Some owners and shops are even matching the donations! The fear in this though, is that later down the line the bosses will use it as a reason for not giving other benefits. How long will these shutdowns last? We cannot rely on consumers to continue to fund for our paychecks.
Workers should not be burdened with bailing each other out during this crisis.
Philly baristas made headlines recently for creative organizing using an anonymous google form to compare wages and benefits across the city. Tactics like these can be built on now in this time of crisis to fight for standard safety measures across the industry for those still working. But to truly curb the spread of this virus, we must demand that all coffee shops close for the safety of the workers and customers, with full pay for all employees. In the case of small businesses who will not be able to keep paying workers for a long period of time, we need immediate cash assistance to replace ALL lost wages paid for by taxes on big corporations.
