[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 702 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 702
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to protect the rights of
restaurant workers.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 19, 2023
Ms. Tlaib (for herself, Mr. Carter of Louisiana, Ms. Lee of California,
Mr. Bowman, Mr. Espaillat, Ms. Clarke of New York, Ms. Bush, Ms.
Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Casar, Mrs. Ramirez, Mr. McGovern, Ms.
Omar, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Ms.
Schakowsky, and Ms. Jackson Lee) submitted the following resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and
in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, the Judiciary,
Financial Services, Energy and Commerce, Agriculture, Oversight and
Accountability, Armed Services, Veterans' Affairs, Natural Resources,
Foreign Affairs, and House Administration, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee
concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to protect the rights of
restaurant workers.
Whereas, as of 2022--
(1) there are over 12.5 million restaurant workers in the United
States, comprising over 10 percent of the overall workforce; and
(2) over 60 percent of American adults report working in the restaurant
industry at some point during their lives and 48 percent report having held
their first regular job in a restaurant;
Whereas the restaurant industry workforce is extremely diverse, in which--
(1) 54 percent are women and nearly \1/2\ are workers of color;
(2) Latino and Latina workers are the most represented racial or ethnic
group in the restaurant industry; and
(3) over \1/5\ of restaurant workers are immigrants, who are denied
access to public programs simply because of their immigration status;
Whereas more than \1/3\ of all women working in the restaurant industry are
mothers, and well over \1/2\ of those are single moms;
Whereas restaurant workers live in poverty at nearly 3 times the rate of the
general workforce, and access food stamps and Medicaid at nearly twice
the rate of the overall workforce;
Whereas employers in 16 States are permitted to pay restaurant workers just
$2.13 an hour before tips, a tipped minimum cash wage that Congress has
not raised since 1991 and that exacerbates the economic impacts of
sexism and racism, as demonstrated by the fact that in those 16 States--
(1) the racial divide in poverty levels is exacerbated, with restaurant
workers of color living in poverty at levels 4.9 percentage points higher
than White restaurant workers; and
(2) sexual harassment is higher than in the States where employers are
required to pay the full minimum wage with tips on top;
Whereas 23.5 percent of workers in the restaurant industry lived without health
coverage in 2017, which is nearly triple the national rate, and only 31
percent of restaurants offer health insurance coverage for their staff
according to a survey of restaurant owners;
Whereas low wages, unjust working conditions, and bans on abortion coverage like
the Hyde Amendment, all interfere with someone's ability to make their
own decisions about pregnancy and whether to become a parent, and
disproportionately affect women and people of color;
Whereas wage theft, discrimination, and other violations of wage and hour law
are extremely common in the restaurant industry, and restaurant workers
are more likely to experience discrimination in restaurants, including
sex discrimination, discrimination against parents, racism and racist
hiring practices;
Whereas the rate of sexual harassment among female restaurant workers is the
highest of any industry, with female workers filing sexual harassment
charges at twice the rate of the general workforce, with one survey of
restaurant industry workers finding that more than 70 percent of women
reported having experienced some form of sexual harassment in the
workplace;
Whereas, since the United States is currently the only OECD country with no
national paid family leave and one of the few high-income countries
without a national family caregiving or medical leave policy, the
majority of restaurant workers have no guaranteed paid or unpaid leave;
Whereas in a survey of COVID impacts on the restaurant industry, 42 percent of
respondents said that someone at their workplace tested positive for
COVID-19 and 68 percent said that the virus impacted their workplaces
with them or their coworkers testing positive, and one in ten restaurant
workers went to work with COVID-19 symptoms because of economic
pressures;
Whereas nearly 6 million restaurant workers lost their jobs in 2020,
disproportionately impacting women and workers of color; and
Whereas unemployment in the restaurant industry in the United States was 41.8
percent in April 2020, at the height of the pandemic, which was more
than twice the rate of unemployment in the private sector overall: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives
that--
(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to develop a
restaurant workers' bill of rights through transparent
inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with
restaurant workers, including members of frontline and
vulnerable communities, labor unions, civil society groups,
academia, and businesses to ensure that restaurant workers
have--
(A) the right to a thriving life by being paid a
thriving wage, having access to safe, stable and
sufficient housing and affordable childcare, and being
economically secure in retirement;
(B) the right to healing and rest by having paid
time to recover from illness, care for family members,
and engage in life outside of work as well as
consistent schedules that allow their families to
thrive;
(C) the right to a safe and dignified work
environment by ensuring restaurant workers are safe
from discrimination and harassment in the workplace;
(D) the right to healthcare and bodily autonomy by
making certain that all restaurant workers have
comprehensive, affordable and accessible health and
reproductive care, protection against discrimination on
the basis of gender identity, and protection against
discrimination regarding hair texture or hairstyles
associated with a particular race or national origin;
and
(E) the right to participation in governance by
exercising their rights as citizens, voters, activists,
and organizers at all levels of government and at our
workplaces, free from pressure and coercion from
employers;
(2) the right to a thriving life will be implemented by--
(A) enacting a Federal law requiring all tipped and
non-tipped restaurant workers to be paid a full
thriving wage, which would eliminate the tip credit and
prohibit employers from paying workers anything less
than the full minimum wage, with tips on top;
(B) exploring options to provide retirement
benefits to all workers regardless of the type of
employment or level of compensation the worker received
through the course of their work history, including by
expanding Social Security or establishing funded
portable retirement accounts;
(C) exploring the viability of a Federal guaranteed
basic income program;
(D) ensuring enforcement of wage and hour
regulations by--
(i) providing a private right of action for
affected workers in the restaurant industry;
(ii) increasing Federal resources for
investigation and enforcement of wage
violations in the restaurant industry;
(iii) engaging in strategic enforcement of
the restaurant industry, which includes
conducting proactive, rather than reactive,
investigations;
(iv) developing sustained partnerships with
worker centers, unions, legal advocacy
organizations, and other community-based
organizations that are embedded in restaurant
worker communities to conduct investigations;
(v) investing resources into informational
campaigns to businesses and know your rights
campaigns for workers;
(vi) strengthening penalties and remedies
for wage violations in the restaurant industry
and engaging in robust compliance agreements
with violators; and
(vii) ensuring that employers are subject
to penalties if they retaliate against
restaurant workers who report wage violations;
(E) modernizing and reforming Federal unemployment
insurance laws to--
(i) guarantee universal minimum standards
for benefits eligibility, duration, and
adequacy, with States free to enact more
expansive benefits;
(ii) reform financing of Federal
unemployment insurance to eliminate incentives
for States and employers to exclude workers,
reduce benefits, and contest valid claims;
(iii) update eligibility standards to match
the modern workforce, and guarantee benefits to
underemployed and part time workers, and
everyone looking for work but still jobless
through no fault of their own, including
workers engaged in caregiving; and
(iv) enact a Federal requirement that all
States provide at least 26 weeks of UI
benefits, and use better measures of labor
market distress to automatically extend and
sustain benefits during downturns;
(F) requiring that large companies and franchisors
first offer rehiring opportunities to former employees,
before hiring new employees, to stop employers from
cutting costs by letting go of their experienced,
higher-paid workers in favor of new, lower-paid
workers;
(G) eliminating at-will employment and enacting
just cause termination policies that--
(i) require that employers have just cause
for termination of employment;
(ii) ensure that employers' rules and
regulations (those which if broken could cause
termination) are standardized, just,
reasonable, and are in place to make the
workplace safe and legal;
(iii) place the burden of proof that an
employee is in violation of any such rule of
regulation on the employer;
(iv) ensure that employers thoroughly
inform employees regarding fireable offenses;
(v) require that employers provide
employees with ample notice regarding
violations;
(vi) ensure that employers carry out a
thorough and just investigation when a worker
is accused of a fireable offense;
(vii) ensure that employees are not
retaliated against by employers for exercising
their right to contest termination in a
judicial or internal process; and
(viii) ensure that traditionally excluded
workers like domestic, agriculture, and
undocumented workers are included in any such
policies;
(H) enacting Federal policies to reduce the high
rate of gender, race or national origin, sexual
orientation, and other forms of employment
discrimination in the restaurant industry by, among
other things--
(i) improving enforcement of existing laws
on employment discrimination and better funding
the Federal agencies tasked with enforcing
those laws;
(ii) implementing and enforcing legislation
prohibiting discrimination based on a person's
hair texture or hairstyle if that style or
texture is commonly associated with a
particular race or national origin;
(iii) mandating employers to train their
employees so long as they employ 5 or more
employees anywhere, even if they do not work at
the same location and even if not all of them
work or reside in the same State;
(iv) clarifying and enforcing Federal laws
regarding independent contractors to fight
misclassification of employees in industries
such as the on-demand economy;
(v) eliminating the use of the ``felony
box'' in job applications;
(vi) enacting policies to eliminate
currently existing gender and racial pay gaps
and adding significant penalties for employers
who refuse to comply; and
(vii) establishing better mechanisms for
workers to report discrimination without fear
of retaliation; and
(I) investing in a robust, qualified childcare
system that is accessible to all workers, regardless of
their ability to pay or their immigration status, by--
(i) establishing free, quality federally
funded training programs and advancement
opportunities for early educators;
(ii) ensuring child care providers make a
thriving wage to support themselves and their
families and thrive;
(iii) ensuring equal access to childcare
for all parents and caretakers, not just
birthing mothers;
(iv) ensuring a wide variety of funded
options that meet caretakers' diverse and
unique needs;
(v) expanding the funding and scope of the
Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home
Visiting Program; and
(vi) ensuring access to free, quality,
nontraditional hour care, including night care;
(3) the right to healing and rest will be implemented by--
(A) a Federal requirement that employers provide
paid sick, family, medical and vacation leave to all
restaurant workers regardless of their immigration
status, implemented through the enactment of--
(i) Federal legislation that guarantees all
employees a minimum amount of paid family and
medical leave, with continued health insurance
coverage and meaningful wage replacement during
leave, and with guaranteed job security and
protection from retaliation upon the employee's
return from leave;
(ii) Federal legislation that entitles all
workers to a minimum number of paid days of
vacation; and
(iii) Federal legislation that mandates a
minimum number of hours of paid sick and safe
leave per calendar year for personal and family
care regardless of position, tenure, and hours
worked per week; and
(B) a Federal requirement that businesses--
(i) post employees' work schedules at least
two weeks in advance or not later than a
certain number of days before their shift
begins;
(ii) ensure adequate rest between shifts;
(iii) provide employees with additional pay
when employers make last-minute schedule
changes and for on-call shifts;
(iv) allow employees to make scheduling
requests or decline schedule changes without
fear of retaliation;
(v) offer newly available hours to
qualified existing staff before making new
hires; and
(vi) ensure that employees not be penalized
or retaliated against for lawful absences under
no-fault attendance policies;
(4) the right to a safe and dignified work environment will
be implemented by--
(A) taking steps to ensure workplace health and
safety in the restaurant industry, including by--
(i) requiring employers, with input from
employees, to develop, adopt, and distribute
plans, which must at a minimum follow
guidelines from the CDC and OSHA, to protect
employees' health and safety at work that must
be activated when a Federal or State pandemic
state of emergency is declared;
(ii) requiring employers to train all
workers on hazards and the measures the
employer has implemented in the workplace to
protect workers from dangers including working
with sharp knives, electrical hazards, slippery
and cluttered floors, fire hazards and burns
from cooking equipment and hot food,
musculoskeletal disorders, dangerous cleaning
and other chemicals, workplace violence, and
COVID-19;
(iii) requiring employers to permit
employees at a worksite to establish a joint
labor-management workplace safety committee
where employee members can raise health and
safety concerns, hazards, complaints, and
violations to the employer to which the
employer must respond;
(iv) improving enforcement of existing
workplace safety laws and better funding the
Federal agencies tasked with enforcing those
laws; and
(v) re-examining existing anti-retaliation
protections, lack of a worker's private right
of action, current standards, and penalties and
sanctions for workplace safety violations and,
if necessary, updating them to make sure they
are effective;
(B) enacting Federal policies to reduce the high
rate of sex (including sexual orientation and gender
identity) discrimination, racial discrimination, and
other forms of employment discrimination in the
restaurant industry by--
(i) improving enforcement of existing laws
on employment discrimination and better funding
the Federal agencies tasked with enforcing
those laws;
(ii) clarifying and enforcing Federal laws
regarding independent contractors to fight
misclassification of employees in industries
such as the on-demand economy;
(iii) eliminating the use of the ``felony
box'' in job applications by expanding the
Federal ban the box law to private companies;
(iv) enacting equal pay policies to
eliminate currently existing gender and racial
pay disparities and adding significant
penalties for employers who refuse to comply;
(v) ensuring that employers treat part-time
and full-time employees equally when they hold
substantially similar jobs; and
(vi) establishing better mechanisms for
workers to report discrimination without fear
of retaliation, especially for undocumented
workers, and ensuring that employers are
subject to penalties if they retaliate against
workers who report discrimination; and
(C) enacting Federal policies to ensure that all
immigrant workers and their families currently in the
United States have the opportunity to normalize their
immigration status, whether by temporary authorization,
lawful permanent status, or full citizenship, including
immediate eligibility to work and to access health care
and other government programs and supports, as well
as--
(i) enacting H.R. 5227 (117th), the LIFT
the BAR Act of 2021; and
(ii) enacting H.R. 3149 (117th), the HEAL
for Immigrant Families Act of 2021;
(5) the right to healthcare and bodily autonomy will be
implemented by--
(A) ensuring that all individuals living in the
United States have equal access to comprehensive,
quality, affordable health care, without the threat of
financial hardship, by--
(i) decoupling healthcare coverage from
employment; and
(ii) exploring moving toward a single-
payer, Government-administered healthcare
system which would cover all residents of the
United States for all medically necessary
services, including doctor, hospital,
preventive, long-term care, mental health,
abortion care and other reproductive health
care, gender-affirming care, dental, vision,
prescription drug, and medical supply costs;
(B) taking steps to protect access to reproductive
rights and health care for all workers in the United
States, irrespective of race, socioeconomic status,
employer, State of residency, immigration status,
gender identity, and sexual orientation; and
(C) enacting H.R. 2234 (117th), the EACH Act of
2021;
(6) the right to participation in governance will be
implemented by--
(A) taking steps to preserve the right of workers
to freely organize and bargain collectively with
employers, including by--
(i) eliminating the racist exclusions and
barriers within the National Labor Relations
Act, providing full inclusion and the right to
a union for all workers, including--
(I) reestablishing voluntary
recognition of unions upon majority
support; and
(II) not holding a secret election
and guaranteeing the ability of workers
to talk openly about unionization at
work and union organizers to speak to
workers openly;
(ii) expanding national labor protections
related to employees' rights to organize,
participate in unions, and collectively bargain
in the workplace and pass the Richard L. Trumka
Protecting the Right to Organize Act that--
(I) would permit labor
organizations to encourage
participation of union members in
strikes initiated by employees
represented by a different labor
organization; and
(II) prohibits employers from
bringing claims against unions that
conduct such secondary strikes;
(iii) repealing the Labor Management
Relations Act, 1947 (known as the ``Taft-
Hartley Act'') and the amendments made by such
Act;
(iv) banning State and local ``right-to-
work'' laws;
(v) establishing strict and significant
penalties when employers break laws in an
effort to bust unions; and
(vi) ending ``captive audience'' meetings;
and
(B) protecting the right of all citizens to vote,
and making voting as accessible as possible, especially
for historically excluded communities, such as Black
and Brown people, women, returning citizens, and those
in poverty, by--
(i) establishing universal registration and
voting;
(ii) implementing legislation requiring
each State to permit any eligible individual on
the day of a Federal election and on any day
when voting, including early voting, is
permitted for a Federal election--
(I) to register to vote in such
election at the polling place using a
form that meets the requirements under
section 9(b) of the National Voter
Registration Act of 1993 (or, if the
individual is already registered to
vote, to revise any of the individual's
voter registration information); and
(II) to cast a vote in such
election;
(iii) opposing laws and policies which seek
to erect further barriers and make ballot
access more difficult; and
(iv) passing the Same Day Registration Act
of 2023, the Freedom to Vote Act, and the John
R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act; and
(7) a Restaurant Workers' Bill of Rights must be developed
through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration,
and partnership with restaurant workers, including members of
frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, civil
society groups, academia, and businesses.
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