My Experience
Over the course of my internship I contributed to three major reports, ROC United’s Miami: Paid Sick Days Report, Behind the Kitchen Door: Philadelphia, and Darden’s Decision. All three of these reports showcase the cornerstone of ROC’s approach to workplace justice campaigns. The reports use primary research amongst restaurant workers and restaurant employers to display the consequences of low-road employment practices. Low road employment practices are characterized by paying employees low wages, not offering benefits such as healthcare and paid sick days, and general mistreatment through verbal abuse or not following health and safety standards. These reports are also used as a basis for policy recommendations that will help to eliminate low road practices.
As part of “Darden’s Decision” I went through Darden’s annual reports to determine profit margin and other financial metrics. My accounting and basic finance courses were key to being able to decipher annual reports. Additionally, I used this skill set throughout the internship to determine whether a particular restaurant was financially healthy. While working on the Behind the Kitchen Door: Philadelphia and the Miami Paid Sick Days reports, I learned how to use statistical programs such as SPSS to interpret raw data from surveys. The program was helpful in quantifying large amounts of data, however I relied on knowledge gained in my statistics course to interpret the figures that came out of SPSS.
It was sometimes difficult to listen to a worker’s story of mistreatment and not be able to affect change right away. I interviewed one woman who worked at an Olive Garden in Michigan. She had been unfairly demoted because of a personality test, despite having worked at the restaurant for 17 years. Another worker I spoke to in Miami had to work sick when she had a fever of over 100 degrees. She eventually went the ER and was diagnosed with Typhoid fever! These workers have no protection because for some reason people believe that restaurant work is a transient job and that these employees don’t deserve the same benefits that other industries receive. However, restaurant work is not a transient job for most people. In our Behind the Kitchen Door: Philadelphia report, we found that 63.5% of restaurant workers in Philadelphia are full time workers (not part time), and that over 80% had worked at their current restaurant longer than a year.
This internship has given me a much different experience than a “typical” business school internship. ROC United Is a worker led organization so I was able to look at employee issues from the employee’s perspective. While business school tries to give a holistic view of industry and the business world, it lacks the ability to give students a human view of employee issues. In finance and organizational courses we speak about cutting headcount or reducing benefits as if no one will be seriously affected. Throughout the summer I was able to interact with restaurant employees, some employees who have had to struggle to survive as a result of low wages. Their wages are low and they receive no benefits because CEOs and owners put profit above human needs. As a result of this internship, I now believe that every business school student should have an internship or maybe even a week long course where they see the effects of eliminating redundancies, pensions, or cutting pay. This experience would make tomorrow’s future leaders think more about their employees and their employee’s families when they make important decisions. Perhaps this experience would help future business leaders take all of their stakeholders (employees, community, environment) into consideration in addition to their shareholders.
