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YOU WON’T SEE SEX OFFERED ON RESTAURANT MENUS. But it’s there. Restaurant workers hate it. Bosses demand it. Customers like it. And there is no law against it. Yet.

YOU WON’T SEE SEX OFFERED ON RESTAURANT MENUS. But it’s there. Restaurant workers hate it. Bosses demand it. Customers like it. And there is no law against it. Yet.

“I’ve been through it all,” says Laura, a 15 year veteran of work in a dozen B.C. restatuants.

I’ve had employers make comments about my body. I’ve had male managers make comments about the way my butt looks, the way my boobs look, non-stop. I’ve had them make comments about the way my outfit looks on me. I’ve had male managers grab me. I’ve had my ass smacked,” she says.

This kind of behaviour is just the culture in a lot of restaurants, she says. “You’re expected to accept it to keep your job.”

Laura’s last restaurant job was tending bar in Fort McMurray. “The dress code there was the worst one yet,” she says. “You could see right up the A-line miniskirts whenever a server bent over or stretched up to reach a glass.”

Laura led a protest, convincing her fellow servers to wear jean shorts instead. They lost that battle. She was scolded mercilessly in a staff meeting. Soon after the restaurant burned down in the fire that engulfed Fort McMurray in 2016. Laura took this as a sign to quit restaruant work—and she did.

Sex is always a side dish

Sexism has plagued the restaurant industry forever—in fact, some restaurants, like Hooters, hang their reputation on it. The servers are beautiful. Their heels are high. Their skirts are mini. Their makeup is flawless. They’re selling you more than just your dinner.

In fact the approach is so common the human resources industry even has a name for it. They call it “asethetic labour” Here’s how they define it:

Aesthetic labour [is] the desire of employers to hire workers who look or act a particular way. In the restaurant industry this often translates into women who are ‘good-looking’ or sexually available [...] Employer’s expectations commodify women’s bodies, contributing to a workplace culture in which sexual harassment of women staff becomes normalized and commonplace.

The attractiveness standard applies to men as well. But, men don’t have to endure long hours of torture wearing high heels. Something female servers say makes their work painful and dangerous.

MEGAN CLEARY WAS DETERMINED TO END HER SEXUAL HARRASSMENT AT WORK. She expected her human rights to be honoured. She didn't stop until they were. 

Twitter:  #METOO

Former East Side Mario’s waitress Megan Cleary (right) with her mother, Dawn Cleary   _{[Heather Rivers/Sentinel Review]}

MEGAN CLEARY WAS DETERMINED TO END HER SEXUAL HARRASSMENT AT WORK. She expected her human rights to be honoured. She didn’t stop until they were.

Megan worked as a waitress at an East Side Mario’s restaurant in Woodstock, Ontario. Her manager subjected her to continuous unwanted sexual advances. The harrassment began with suggestions of sexual touching. It soon escalated to sexual assault when he began to grab Megan’s breasts. He even went so far as to seize her from behind and pull her tight to him.

Megan constantly demanded the manager stop. His actions made her burst into tears. It didn’t matter. He continued his abuse. Finally, Megan and another waitress, decided to take action.

They met with the restaurant’s general manager. Their mothers went along with them. Megan submitted a written complaint. It detailed the ongoing abuse. Five other women also attested to the manager’s attacks.

In addition, the women sent a letter to the franchise owner, Frank Spadafora, and filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

After the meeting, the women were told that the manager would be fired.

Justice denied

But it didn’t happen. Instead he was given a short leave of absence and then allowed to return to work.

The franchise owner had decided there wasn’t enough evidence to remove the manager from his job.“I cannot begin to comprehend that seven different girls experienced such a severity of sexual assault and they didn’t fire the guy,” says Megan.

That’s when she made the painful decision to leave the job she loved. She saw no other way to escape the abuse. But Megan wasn’t done. She and her workmate decided to go to the press. Megan saw it as the only way to protect other women.

Once the media began calling the franchise and Cara foods, the manager was fired.

IT’S JUST TOO DAMN HARD TO JOIN A UNION. That’s the compelling conclusion of new research from the Canadian Labour Institute (CLI). It is also a resounding rebuke to all the bogus “evidence” that unions just don’t matter any more.

How much unions matter should be above dispute. After all our Supreme Court has said how important unions are to us all in ruling after ruling.

In 2007 the court ruled the right to bargain collectively is “a fundamental aspect of Canadian society” that “reaffirms the values of dignity, personal autonomy, equality and democracy” upheld by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In January 2015, the court went on to rule that workers not only have that right, but the related rights to choose the bargaining agent of their choice and to strike

Still, workers don’t seem to be getting the message. If they did they’d be joining unions in droves. But they aren’t: the rate of unionization in Canada has been dropping since 1984 (42% then, just above 30% now)? Proof that unions don’t matter to workers say the business and media elites. Not so, says Brodie Noga author of the CLI study.

His research shows the main reason union membership is in decline is not that workers don’t want to join—it’s that laws make it too damn hard to join. Specifically: laws that set out how workers are permitted to organize.

The research data rules out other factors like changing technology and globalization. Domestic politics, on the other hand, continues to loom large.

The certification obstacle course

Workers who decide to join together to win better wages and employment conditions don’t just get together in their workplaces, call themselves a union and start collective bargaining. To unionize under Canadian law, they are required to run an obstacle course of hoops and hurdles called certification. (And some aren’t even allowed to join the race.)

Since 1982, there have been no fewer than 78 changes to provincial and federal laws that restrict the right to organize unions and bargain collectively. Eight of these have made certification more difficult.

DET. CONST. DEBBIE CARLETON'S JOB RUINED HER HEALTH. But getting the care any injured worker is entitled to is not easy. She has filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to get it.

Det. Const. Debbie Carleton today and as a young rookie in the inset

DET. CONST. DEBBIE CARLETON'S JOB RUINED HER HEALTH. But getting the care any injured worker is entitled to is not easy. She has filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to get it.

Debbie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). No surprise when your job for 22 years was seeing the worst of people, or people in great pain, all day, every day.

Halifax police Chief Jean-Michel Blais also has PTSD. In fact Blais calls himself the “poster boy” for those living with PTSD. That hasn’t helped Debbie. Blais refuses to approve any more treatment for her.

Debbie says she “feels discarded” and “completely abandoned” by her chief.

She is not alone. Const. Mark Long filed a human rights complaint in September, claiming the department denied him the specialized care his PTSD requires.

Workers shouldn’t expect ‘Cadillac care’

Blais maintains his support for his officers is 100%. But he has called PTSD the “flavour of the day.” He says it can overshadow other mental illnesses officers may suffer that are not caused by their work.

He also suggests those with PTSD shouldn’t blame him when they don’t get “Cadillac treatment.” Something he says the police department can’t afford. He says his officers should simply take whatever care is offered and say, “I’m going to take care of myself and get going?”

Const. Mark Long

Suicide attempt not enough to merit care

Debbie Carleton, started as a patrol officer in 1995. She witnessed more than her share of horror, working undercover as a prostitute, investigating child pornography, human trafficking and other serious crimes.

It was hard for Debbie to accept her June 2015 diagnosis. “There is still a huge stigma of coming forward to say that you have PTSD because you feel broken, ashamed, especially as a female going through years and years of trying to prove yourself to men that you can handle the job.”