Workers at Hooters-Style Restaurant Strike, Protesting Racist Sexist Manager

[Omaha Steve]

When kitchen workers walked out, protesting a racist manager along with unfair firings and wage theft, they were joined by wait staff who had been abused by the same manager. “When we found out back of the house was on strike, everyone in the front of house was communicating with each other saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve been experiencing the same thing,’” one server said. Photo: Workers’ Dignity.

January 24, 2023 / Luis Feliz Leon

Latino immigrant kitchen workers and a group of racially diverse women servers walked out at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Brentwood, Tennessee, on Saturday, January 14. They say their employer is serving up of a toxic brew of racism and sexism.

“We went on strike to fire a manager because he is mistreating my co-workers verbally and physically,” Juan Carlos Mendoza, a barback with six years at the restaurant, told the Spanish-language news channel Nashville Noticias. “The manager is a racist… and that’s why we raised our voices.”

Eighteen workers walked out, accusing general manager Andrew “Hunter” Kirkpatrick of racist and abusive behavior, including throwing away their lunches, berating them for speaking Spanish, and threatening to call the police on them. The kitchen workers are indigenous people from Mexico and Guatemala.

SERVERS JOIN STRIKE

The following Monday, 21 kitchen workers picketed the restaurant—now joined on an open-ended strike by 10 servers.

FULL story: https://www.labornotes.org/2023/01/workers-hooters-style-restaurant-strike-protesting-racist-sexist-manager

Luis Feliz Leon is a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes. [e-mail]