Op-Ed: A Suggestion for Terry Durack

James Barbeiro responds to the article “Serving suggestion: Could conscription ease the hospitality staffing crisis?” by Terry Durack

By James Barbeiro

The whole thing reads like a satirical  article, it wasn't until the end that I realized that for real, it wasn't. I sort of wish it was. It would have left me with a better taste in my mouth. 

I think the article lacks any positive analysis that holds owners and shareholders accountable for the atmosphere that they have created. One where workers bear the weight of an industry that demands far too much from them to appease an overly demanding abusive public sphere. Nor does it hold workers accountable to their responsibility to make things better. 

It does seem though that workers recognize their needs aren't being met. Workers want free time, benefits, democracy in the workplace, and they want their jobs to have meaning beyond paying for their bosses' vacation homes and luxury vehicles.  

If the owning class can't provide that within their framework of the restaurant industry then they will simply fail, and workers will pick up the pieces and create a new industry that feeds people- not for profit- but for the betterment of our health and wellness. (Ideally)

I think this article is harmful to a lot of people, the insinuation to sacrifice our kids to the industry? To send students who have left school Into an industry that will chew them up and spit them right back out. This "solution" takes the blame away from our educational institutions and our governments for leaving our youth un-inspired by the futures we've presented them. Kids aren't leaving school, we've left them behind. And I can't blame them for it, the future we've presented them is bleak.

According to Terry Durack, we should be asking  our retired community members to pull themselves out of retirement to help supplement the lack of workers.  I ask, “for what?” A few extra dollars in the hands of business owners who have already mis-managed the industry? We certainly aren't asking them to come back for good wages, or benefits, or a work life balance. But on top of this, I thought the whole point of working hard for the entirety of our short lives, and missing out on important events with our families was to be able to relax in our retirements. To catch up on lost time that we sacrificed at these lifeless family businesses. To enjoy the lives we worked so hard to build. But again thanks to the lack of social infrastructure and support for our elderly retired folks, they might not have a choice but to return to work, if they ever had the chance to leave work in the first place.

And then to proclaim that refugees and asylum seekers should be thought to serve us gives me the creeps and makes me think of the horrors being committed and the ones to come as we justify worse treatments for people who are simply seeking better lives than the ones we have ruined. When massive migrations of people come to our borders thanks to a climate crisis that the restaurant industry has a huge part to play in, I fear we will be treating them with this same kind of inhumanity, likely worse. 

And all of this in the name of a big fat tip? Screw that. I'm happy to see workers refusing to "bend the knee" to crap jobs in a crap industry that pretends to be more important than it is. 

I'm happy to see workers recognize that the way the industry has been run, by "industry professionals" is completely backwards and leaves us alienated from each other and our communities. The pretext that restaurants are public spaces that people can enjoy, was never true, and is increasingly clear as we see a lack of public spaces to exist during economic turmoil. 

And then there's me and you. What are we supposed to do in the light of this continued attitude that workers have to sacrifice their lives for the economic benefits of restaurants? 

Well, we could reject it, which seems to be happening to a certain degree. 

We are certainly seeing something happening with Starbucks and Amazon unionizing. 

We can certainly recognize our worth and demand better from our employers. We need to demand better for our future generations. We need to see sustainability be at the forefront, and we need to see that food guarantees are at the forefront of how the industry functions. With droughts, floods, fires and the increasing severity of climate change, restaurants will be the first to see supply chain issues, if they haven't already. Some might be the only ones able to access cheap ingredients, will they hoard them for paying customers? Or feed the community? Will chef's continue to cater to the rich, while they wither away in relative poverty, or will they stick true to their class roots and help feed the people? Who knows! The future right now is certainly uncertain and all we can do is hope to be organized enough to be ready when these questions need answers. 

Hopefully people who think this opinion piece is great aren't the ones with the loudest answers to present.