Study: Many female restaurant workers have been harassed

A survey of women in the restaurant industry finds pervasive sexual harassment from co-workers, managers and especially customers.

According to the survey conducted by the Restaurant Opportunity Center, a nonprofit workers group, 90 percent of the women who responded said they were sexually harassed on the job.

The report was compiled in cooperation with roughly a dozen other women's and workers' rights groups, including interviews with 688 restaurant workers in 39 states. It found that women who lived off tips were more likely to be harassed than those who didn't, with one-third of women experiencing harassment from customers on a weekly basis.

Additionally, women living in states with a $2.13 per hour tipped minimum wage are twice as likely to be harassed as women in states that require full minimum wage for workers. Only seven states require the same wage for both jobs in which tips are earned and jobs where the workers do not receive gratuity.

Employees in states with a $2.13 tipped minimum wage were three times more likely to be told by managers to wear "sexier" clothing than in states with a flat minimum wage, according to the survey.

Because servers are so reliant on tips, the power shifts to the paying customers, said Ariel Jacobson, communications director of the Restaurant Opportunity Center.

"This creates a power dynamic where workers are depending on tips to be able to feed their children and pay their rent so they'll put up with a lot, including any kind of inappropriate treatment, touching, or sexualized behavior," Jacobson said.

The study from the ROC comes on the heels of a push by workers' rights groups to increase the federal minimum wage. The ROC supports increasing the minimum wage for servers to be in line with standard minimum wage. For that reason, groups like the New Jersey Restaurant Association are refuting the validity of the study.

"It's a very serious topic and it's not something that should be used to pursue anyone's interest, because it's something we take very seriously in the industry," said NJRA president Marilou Halverson.

Halverson said harassment is taken very seriously by her organization, and any server who is harassed by a customer is told to bring the issue to management.

"No tip is worth that," Halverson said.

However, Jacobson said servers often risk more than their paycheck by losing a table.

"Tips have become a measure of how well you're doing your job, so they're not only worrying about losing their income but they're also worried about being reprimanded by their supervisors or even losing their job," Jacobson said.