One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman
One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman
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One Fair Wage
Ending Subminimum Pay in America

Author: Saru Jayaraman

Narrator: Siiri Scott

Unabridged: 5 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/29/2022


Synopsis

Before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the country, more than six million people earned their living as tipped workers in the service industry. They served us in cafes and restaurants, they delivered food to our homes, they drove us wherever we wanted to go, and they worked in nail salons for as little as $2.13 an hour—the federal tipped minimum wage since 1991—leaving them with next to nothing to get by.

These workers, unsurprisingly, were among the most vulnerable workers during the pandemic. As businesses across the country closed down or drastically scaled back their services, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs. As in many other areas, the pandemic exposed the inadequacies of the nation's social safety net and minimum-wage standards.

One of New York magazine's "Influentials" of New York City, one of CNN's Visionary Women in 2014, and a White House Champion of Change in 2014, Saru Jayaraman is a nationally acclaimed restaurant activist and the author of the bestselling Behind the Kitchen Door. In her new book, One Fair Wage, Jayaraman shines a light on these workers, illustrating how the people left out of the fight for a fair minimum wage are society's most marginalized. They epitomize the direction of our whole economy, reflecting the precariousness and instability that is increasingly the lot of American labor.

About Saru Jayaraman

Saru Jayaraman is director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, president of One Fair Wage, cofounder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), and author of Behind the Kitchen Door and Forked: A New Standard for American Dining.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard on September 18, 2021

Saru Jayaraman is the author of the acclaimed "Behind the Kitchen Door" and a longtime activist for the rights of food and restaurant workers. With "One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America." Jayaraman pointedly explores how the subminimum wage and tipping system exploits society's most vulne......more

Goodreads review by Herbert on October 19, 2022

radical and necessary views on ending the tipped minimum wage. Lets do it!......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on June 17, 2024

Saru Jayaraman's "One Fair Wages" uses a collection of individual stories, survey data, and some history and statistics to illuminate the fundamental injustice of subminimum wages. The federal tipped minimum wage remains only $2.13, putting workers at risk of abusive from unscrupulous bosses or merc......more

Goodreads review by Blake on November 28, 2021

Some good information and elements of awareness in this book, but it’s not worth $20-$25. 190 pages that take a few hours to read and it can be repetitive. If interested in reading it, this is a good one to check out from the library and skim over the weekend. You can get the gist of the full book b......more

Goodreads review by John Ryan on April 29, 2023

Fast reading book that highlights both how many Americans are paid a subminimum wage and individual stories that demonstrate the impact of this low wage on people. Wages of these workers were so low that many did not qualify for unemployment compensation during the pandemic because their wages were......more