What If Restaurants Stopped Hiring Illegal Immigrants?

[n2doc]

By SARAH KERSHAW
In the 2004 film “A Day Without a Mexican,” all of California’s Mexicans suddenly disappear. The state wakes up to a world with no gardeners, nannies, strawberry pickers, maids, cooks, dishwashers. Through extreme exaggeration, the mockumentary makes point that without the Mexicans, the economy would essentially grind to a halt, and it satirizes those who want to send immigrants back across the border — or stop them from coming in. Presumably, if these abandoned low wage jobs were filled by legal workers making legal wages, everything would cost a whole lot more.

So in real life: What if the restaurant industry — one of the largest employers of immigrants, a good number of whom, it is no secret, are undocumented — had to do it all above board? (According to 2008 estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants make up about 20 percent of the nation’s chefs, head cooks and cooks, and about 28 percent of its dishwashers.) That’s the intention, at least, of the Obama Administration’s intensified crackdown on employers that hire illegal immigrants, with businesses including restaurants now facing more scrutiny than they have in decades.

Some restaurateurs say that the cost of a meal would shoot up if they were forced to comply with immigration and labor laws.

“At the end of the day, the customer is going to end up paying for it,” said one TriBeCa chef and restaurateur I interviewed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to draw attention to his business. “We’ll have to pay higher wages, more taxes and then we will have to charge more.”

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http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/what-if-restaurants-stopped-hiring-illegal-immigrants/

[cleanhippie]

1. There would be "Help wanted" signs and things would cost more.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I don't know, would Red Robin charge 15 bucks for a stupid wad of ground beef

instead of ten? How about Italian chains that charge 12 bucks for PASTA?? How much higher can prices go before people just stop going out? We're getting to that point.

[izquierdista]

9. Fools and their money

Restaurants know how to part the two with "ambiance". Red Robin is kid friendly, using the kids to leverage the money out of Mom&Dad's wallet. There is a standard rule in the restaurant industry to set prices at 4 times the cost of food. If they have to pay their workers better, then it will go up to 5 times.

[babylonsister]

3. What a bunch of shite. Now Obama wants to get rid of

dishwashers? Last I checked, they were rounding up felons and making employers be more responsible.

Either way, they can't win. The restaurant industry will take offense, and those who are anti-immigrant will take offense if nothing is done.

[Brickbat]

4. Oh, fer...

“At the end of the day, the customer is going to end up paying for it,” said one TriBeCa chef and restaurateur I interviewed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to draw attention to his business. “We’ll have to pay higher wages, more taxes and then we will have to charge more.”

You know, I'm JUST FINE paying more for a product to make sure that the people involved in production were treated lawfully and that the business followed labor, safety and environmental laws.

[dkf]

5. Then they would hire Americans and we would be at full employment?

Employers are addicted to cheap labor. Until American workers demand and get a livable wage the value of labor is cut dramatically by illegal hiring.

[Populist_Prole]

19. Bingo dkf

They'd have to pay more, since the artificial downward pressure on wages would be diminished. Since the job would pay more, it would be sustaining, and boost economic activity from the bottom up...and would no longer be "...a job Americans won't do...."

[closeupready]

6. The people at the top would have to make less, and pay their employees more.

n/t

[L0oniX]

17. +9999999999999999999999999

[Warpy]

7. The best restaurants would curl up and die

The dirty secret is that the best chefs out there are generally Mexicans, many of whom came here illegally.

Bourdain has written more than once that his favorite people to work with are the Mexican guys who started off washing dishes and worked their way up the line as better jobs became available, learning the kitchen from the bottom up and willing to work hard at making it successful.

Lose all the Mexicans and you'd end up with a country full of expensive restaurants that were back to 1950s standards. No thanks.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. My guess is the streets and alleys would be blocked with dirty dishes, making it

impossible for people to travel.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. I don't know what the percentage of each meal is labor cost...

but if restaurants labor costs increase by 20%, whatever percentage of your meal that covers wages will have to go up by 20%. Restaurants are almost all low wage businesses. That was true when I was a bus boy in 1968. It was true for my mother who worked as a waitress from 1946 until 2004, when no one would hire an 82 year old waitress. My mom often made more in tips than she did in wages.

So if God came back and raptured up all the undocumented immigrant workers prices would go up for everything they work on, form produce to houses. That is why we keep a low wage slave force around.

[slackmaster]

11. “A Day Without a Mexican” is a great movie

It's not going to happen.

[Yupster]

12. The unemployment rate for young unskilled workers

would go way down from their current record highs.

[Edweird]

13. Seriously? The deification of illegal immigrants is ridiculous.

If they were as wonderful as their worshippers here imagine, their country would be paradise and WE would want to move THERE. But it's not, and the reality is that they are people that come here in violation of immigration law and drive down wages while making job conditions less safe and taking a job that a legal resident/citizen desperately needs.

[Retrograde]

14. The same thing they do now in places with less immigration?

Hire the locals? I have white, native-born relatives who live in an area with a low immigration rate who've recently worked as busboys, dishwashers and gardeners to make money while they were in school before moving on to a more skilled job. I've done it, many years ago. Part time, no bennies, but the money was useful.

[depakid]

15. The very same Americans who "talk tough" and decry would screech and howl

like toddlers if they had to pay prices for a meal that reflected a living wage.

[closeupready]

18. That's why Arizona declined to get tough on employers in their new law.

They put in some language about some required form to fill out or something like that, but it was a toothless measure.

[w8liftinglady]

16. some of These guys may have to take a pay cut...but don't count on it.

BNHNA BENIHANA INC -CL A Joel A. Schwartz 2009 738,310
BH BIGLARI HOLDINGS INC Sardar Biglari 2009 515,445
BJRI BJ'S RESTAURANTS INC Gerald W. Deitchle 2008 742,326
BOBE BOB EVANS FARMS Steven A. Davis 2009 3,262,198
EAT BRINKER INTL INC Douglas H. Brooks 2009 3,428,104
BWLD BUFFALO WILD WINGS INC Sally J. Smith 2009 2,413,271
BKC BURGER KING HOLDINGS INC John W. Chidsey 2009 5,457,773
CPKI CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN INC Larry S. Flax 2008 2,337,423
CBOU CARIBOU COFFEE CO Michael J. Tattersfield 2009 1,532,677
TAST CARROLS RESTAURANT GROUP INC Alan Vituli 2009 1,517,408
CEC CEC ENTERTAINMENT INC Michael H. Magusiak 2009 2,710,336
CAKE CHEESECAKE FACTORY INC David Overton 2009 3,611,812
CMG CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL INC Steve Ells 2009 6,414,698
CKR CKE RESTAURANTS INC Andrew F. Puzder 2009 7,353,899
CBRL CRACKER BARREL OLD CTRY STOR Michael A. Woodhouse 2009 4,736,509
DRI DARDEN RESTAURANTS INC Clarence Otis Jr. 2009 5,013,601
DENN DENNYS CORP Nelson J. Marchioli 2009 2,112,154
DIN DINEEQUITY INC Julia A. Stewart 2009 2,572,012
DPZ DOMINO'S PIZZA INC David A. Brandon 2009 4,207,131
BAGL EINSTEIN NOAH RESTAURANT GRP Jeffrey J. O¿Neill 2009 909,579
FRS FRISCH'S RESTAURANTS INC Craig F. Maier 2009 918,912
JACK JACK IN THE BOX INC Linda A. Lang 2009 7,107,658
LNY LANDRYS RESTAURANTS INC Tilman J. Fertitta 2008 6,137,152
LUB LUBYS INC Christopher J. Pappas 2009 651,727
MSSR MCCORMICK & SCHMICKS SEAFOOD William T. Freeman 2009 1,147,518
MCD MCDONALD'S CORP James A. Skinner 2009 17,574,125
CHUX O'CHARLEY'S INC Gregory L. Burns 2009 1,880,297
PFCB P F CHANGS CHINA BISTRO INC Richard L. Federico 2009 3,460,038
PNRA PANERA BREAD CO Ronald M. Shaich 2009 3,354,708
PZZA PAPA JOHNS INTERNATIONAL INC John H. Schnatter 2009 2,319,643
RRGB RED ROBIN GOURMET BURGERS Dennis B. Mullen 2009 1,869,108
RT RUBY TUESDAY INC Samuel E. Beall III 2009 4,041,179
RUTH RUTHS HOSPITALITY GROUP INC Michael P. O¿Donnell 2009 887,000
SONC SONIC CORP J. C. Hudson 2009 1,224,191
SBUX STARBUCKS CORP Howard Schultz 2009 12,109,792
TXRH TEXAS ROADHOUSE INC G J. Hart 2009 1,800,000
THI TIM HORTONS INC Donald B. Schroeder 2008 1,742,831
WEN WENDY'S/ARBY'S GROUP INC Roland C. Smith 2009 3,436,781
YUM YUM BRANDS INC David C. Novak 2009 13,131,292

[HopeHoops]

20. The food wouldn't be as good.