Giving Restaurant Workers a Seat at the Table May 7, 2021 • David K. Gibson Restaurant workers have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the associated upheaval. According to a National Restaurant Association survey, two-thirds of workers had lost their jobs by April 2020, just two months into the pandemic. As the advocacy organization One Fair Wage notes, the industry includes seven of the 10 lowest-paying jobs in the country, and its workers are three times likelier to live in poverty than the rest of the US workforce. Restaurant workers are among those with the least access to health care, or even the ability to take time off for vaccinations or post-jab side effects. And for the lucky workers who kept their jobs during the pandemic, the customers were often, well, jerks.