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Restaurant Workers Unite!
from Getting Together (circa 1972); Chinese-American Workers: Past & Present
"Hey Charlie" Many waiters in the restaurant face this kind of degrading and insulting treatment towards the Chinese people by the white racists. Facing this situation, a few waiters who have become numb respond without feeling bad about it. But more waiters slash back, showing their true anger towards their customers directly
In fact, Chinese people working in restaurants trying to earn a living don't live such an easy life as some would fancy. Only those who want to be enslaved, those who lose their racial identity would write books on something like, "To be a waiter in restaurants in the U.S. is better than working in any kind of job in Hong Kong." Or like some writer who writes about his experience as a waiter in the restaurant, which is nothing but a "history of a slave," would say that life is satisfying. Most of us workers in the restaurant, after going through the experience, haven't we got the same feeling of having our stomachs filled with bitter water? The case of insulting Chinese people which we just talked about is the most common example. Other than this, how many more cases of injustices do we face at work?
Restaurant workers, cooks, handy men, dishwashers, or waiters have to work heavily for twelve or thirteen hours each day. Long hours of laboring like this is not something most people could stand. What is more, this involves a whole lot of detailed work in the restaurant. The twelve to thirteen hours of work is passed in running around doing minor things, so that we don't even have time to sit down for a cup of tea or a meal. This is specially bad during "dinner hours," when the room is packed, the boss is feeling good, while workers are having a hard time. Waiters rush back and forth to the kitchen, in between customers. Kitchen workers keep preparing food, non-stop according to the announcement of orders by waiters for three to four hours straight. After the rush hours are over, we are faced with all kinds of odd jobs that are left behind till closing time, when we can really get relieved. But by then we are all exhausted and ready to hit the sack. Late at night, we drag our lonely and heavy steps home. Many times we'll find it hard to sleep even lying in bed after being overworked.
So we work with sleepy eyes, sleep with a working mind, on and on. Whatever spirited life there is, whatever pasttime and sports, it is not for us restaurant workers. Public holidays are not for us. We get a break, one day in a week. But we have to make good use of that day to mind things at home, or to have a good sleep, or to catch up with the discrepancy of the last six long days. Although most people think of hard-working it out for fifteen or twenty years, then going back to Hong Kong or our homeland, how many fifteen or twenty years are there for one person? Twenty years of laboring!
We don't want to encourage people to have fun all the time, or encourage people to climb up high to stay on top of other people, to live the decadent life by exploiting others. Anyway, this kind of working system has got to change. The time of Chinese people to be put down by others has long passed. We must unite, get organized, form our workers union. Through the power of the masses, through the union to fight for workers benefits!
Section 2: Present Workers Conditions
A Life of Struggle, The Bitter Sadness
Things I Saw and Heard Working in A Restaurant
Interview - Account of An Injured Chinese Restaurant Worker
Working in a Packing House
The Best or the Worst
Story of an "illegal" Immigrant Worker
Section 3: Women Workers
Women in Chinatown
New York Schools
Interview with a Garment Worker
A Credit to Your Race
Interview with an Ex-Secretary
Interview with a Garment Worker
Section 4: Chinese Youth
