The research summarized by this report is unique in many respects, not least of all because the perspectives of both workers and employers were sought, analyzed, and compared. Our interviews with employers in the Miami-Dade restaurant industry proved to be a rich source of information regarding the constraints under which they operate. These constraints pressure many to engage in the practices described by workers in Chapter III: Workers’ Perspec- tives - often despite their best intentions and their expressed belief that restaurant workers are critical to their success. Many employers spoke about the principles and approaches adopted to pursue the high road – the path to manage a successful business while ensuring that workers earn livable wages and are guaranteed workplace benefits and safe work environments. As such, the perspectives summarized in this chapter can serve to guide further study of the industry, and, perhaps most importantly, lay the groundwork for initiatives developed in partnership by restaurant workers and employers.
Our interviews with employers revealed that:
« Market volatility brought about by factors beyond employers’ control such as economic down- turns, and changing tastes require significant flexibility on the part of restaurant employers. « Worker productivity and low employee turnover are both important to profitability. Workplace
practices intended to increase productivity, such as understaffing and longer, more unpredictable hours can have the effect of increasing employee turnover, creating a dilemma for many employ- ers.
« The majority of Miami-Dade restaurant employers elect to take the low road to profitability. While employers recognized workers’ dependence on wages and overtime to earn enough to meet basic needs, they also reported a policy of keeping wages low and overtime pay to a minimum. « Many employers stated that they would like to offer their workers health insurance but maintain
that it is almost impossible to do so due to prohibitive costs.
« It is possible to achieve profitability by taking the high road and paying livable wages, providing necessary workplace benefits, and maintaining a safe working environment when there is a non- negotiable commitment to doing so. However, employers taking the low road undermine restau- rants following the high-road approach.
« It is possible to achieve profitability by taking the high road and paying livable wages, providing necessary workplace benefits, and maintaining a safe working environment when there is a non- negotiable commitment to doing so.
A. Introduction and Chapter Methodology
In order to obtain a better understanding of factors that drive workplace practices, the Miami-Dade Restaurant In- dustry Coalition interviewed restaurant employers in Miami-Dade County. We conducted in-depth interviews with 30 restaurant employers, including owners and managers, from July 2009 to October 2010. Employers were selected for interviews in a manner designed to gather data reflective of the distribution of the different segments - fine din- ing, casual/family style, fast food/quick serve – and sizes of Miami-Dade’s restaurants. Table 12 shows the profile of employers that we interviewed. The interviews were split fairly evenly between managers and owners as well as between the three industry segments. The large majority of employers we interviewed had over a decade of indus- try experience. Interviews included questions regarding trends in the industry over time, factors affecting business practices, strategies for running a profitable business, workplace practices, and the role of the informal economy in the region’s restaurant industry.
TABLE 12: Profile of Employers Interviewed
Industry Segment Frequency (%) Fine-Dining 10 (33.3%) Family Style/Casual Dining 12 (40%)
Quick Service 8 (26.7%) Total 30 (100%) Position Owner 13 (43.4%) Manager/General Manager 17 (56.7%) Total 30 (100%) Gender Male 25 (83.3%) Female 5 (16.7%) Total 30 (100%)
Length of time in industry
Less than 1 year 0 (0%) 1 – 3 years 4 (13.3%) 3 – 6 years 3 (10%) 6 – 10 years 1 (3.3%) More than 10 years 22 (73.4%)
Total 30 (100%)
Source: Miami-Dade Restaurant Industry Coalition interview data.
B. External Factors Affecting Workplace Practices
In order to better understand the issues affecting restaurant employers and workers alike, it is important to consider some of the most salient external pressures on restaurant businesses in the local context. Employers we interviewed referred to a number of factors that impact their business, workplace, and employment practices, such as customer demand for healthy food, stiff competition and the effect of the economic crisis on business. Many employers felt apprehension about the effect of the economic crisis on tourism. An owner of a quick serve restaurant with one year experience in the industry told us, “Right now there is an economic crisis and restaurants are being hit, South Beach is a tourist area and it’s the slow season and there is the economic crisis.” She asserted that “people aren’t traveling and there is less customers and it affects you.” However, reactions to the crisis were not uniform. Several quick serve employers told us that business had actually increased due to the crisis. One quick serve manager with 15 years in-
dustry experience told us, “More fine dining restaurants are struggling [but] we’re more of a fast food, casual type of atmosphere. Now that we’re in a recession, it’s actually helped us because we offer lower prices.” Another quick serve manager with 6 years industry experience told us, “I thought the economy would make it a lot slower, but it has been pretty steady. We serve quick and its pretty steady over here.”
Interestingly, a general manager with 15 years industry experience in one of the very high end restaurants in Miami also claimed that the crisis had not negatively impacted business: “People spend the same amount of money…there is not a huge change.” Although a number of fine dining and family style employers expressed their concerns about the impact of the crisis on their business, many were responding by offering value and taking measures to increase efficiency during the downturn and cater to customer demand for healthy, sustainable food. An upscale casual res- taurant manager with 15 years in the industry told us, “With the economy there is an increasing demand for ‘bigger bang for your buck’. This poses the challenge to fine dining and casual upscale restaurants to either increase portions or reduce prices. So that means from a management perspective that we have the challenge of operating with greater efficiency to be able to pass those savings on to our consumers.” Another manager of a fine dining restaurant with 15 years industry experience had a similar sentiment: “Everybody is starting to understand we are living in a crazy world and we don’t pay attention to the earth… so people start to understand and spend a little more money to buy organic and organic wine and food in the last three years. In the next 5-15 years this might be 50% of restaurants.” Observations of a trend in healthy eating were even observed in the quick serve segment. One quick serve manager with 6 years industry experience told us, “We are in a health craze. Try and keep it healthy – the oil and brown rice. Healthy keeps it coming in South Beach.”
Many employers reported that their success has been due to an increase in their customer base. Besides catering to customer demands for value and healthy food, employers reported that they can weather the economic crisis by unit- ing their employees and maintaining a positive environment. One owner of a family style restaurant with 15 years industry experience told us, “My profits are down from last year. I hear of sorts of stories of how folks are losing their jobs and their homes. … But I am optimistic about the future and hope this economy will turn around soon. Because of our ability to group together as a family we will survive. We have been through this several times in the restaurant business.”
These observations of Miami restaurant employers reflect national trends that show that despite the crisis, the restau- rant industry has not been hit as hard as other sectors and has shown long-term growth. The restaurant industry lost jobs at less than half the rate as the rest of the economy (see chapter II). And, while the economy as a whole continues to lag in employment recovery, the restaurant industry has seen a clear trend of job recovery in 2010.45 Certain parts
of the industry, such as fast food46 and liquor sales47, proved very resilient throughout the crisis. Moreover, as shown
in Figure 1 (chapter II), the long-term trend for the restaurant industry has been one of growth, with the size of the restaurant workforce increasing from 5.47% of private sector employment in 1972 to 7.91% in 2009. Figure 4 shows that in the decade between 1998 and 2008, the number of restaurant establishments grew from 3,378 to 3,998.48 A
fine dining restaurant manager with 15 years experience told us he observed “an explosion over the past decade of fine dining and upscale casual restaurants here in South Florida.”
FIGURE 4. Growth in Restaurant Establishments in Miami-Dade, 1998 – 2008
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
Overall, despite the challenges that the economic crisis has presented to Miami-Dade restaurants, the industry con- tinues to progress. There is little reason to believe that the economic crisis is a viable reason to avoid addressing the challenges restaurant workers face in the industry. Indeed, employers themselves repeatedly expressed their concerns regarding low wages and poor working conditions in the industry, and the ways in which these conditions hurt the business in the long run. In the next sections, employers’ perspectives will be discussed regarding two contradicting pressures: 1) the need to increase worker productivity and decrease turnover in the long run by treating and pay- ing workers well; and 2) the imperatives to decrease employee wages and benefits to protect the bottom line in the short run.
C. Strategies for Profit
To deal with many of the external pressures outlined above, employers generally agree that one of the most impor- tant elements of maintaining a profit is human capital. In fact, most employers in our sample agreed that reducing employee turnover and increasing employee productivity were both critical to maintaining long-term profitability and a sustainable business model.