Food Runner and Busser (May Day Special)

Happy May Day!

A person can be calm, genuine, modest, and hard-working while still demanding dignity. That’s what Culinary Worker Heather proves. Heather simply demands dignity and with her brothers and sisters in UNITE HERE LOCAL 226 at her side. 

Heather works as a food runner and busser in a unionized casino restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip and has been a Culinary Union Union member and Shop Steward for 5 years. Having experienced low wages, harassment, and insecurity in non‑union restaurants, she knows first-hand how the union difference - strong contracts, guaranteed benefits, and job protections can change lives. Heather spends her time on and off the clock defending her co-workers’ rights and she is currently canvassing with her union to get out the vote in Nevada ahead of the Primary Election.

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you worked at a restaurant? What was it like?
2. 25,000 steps in a day is a lot! How many steps do you get at work?
3. What industry or kind of work do you think should unionize?
4. What characteristics or skills do you think Heather needs?
5. How do you celebrate labor?

Please send suggestions for future guests to projectlaborpodcast@gmail.com. 

Our instagram is @projectlabor. Leave a comment or question and we’ll be happy to answer.

Music by Brotheration Records

Project Labor is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of New Jersey. All donations to Project Labor are tax deductible in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code. 

Help get the word out with a small donation here. Thank you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 1:24

It's 1886 and the Gilded Age is in full swing. This was a time before capitalism was synonymous with America. On May 1st, 1886, unions organized a massive walk-off, encompassing 13,000 businesses across the country. 350,000 workers walked off the job. New York and Texas, Detroit and Pennsylvania. In that decade, thousands were working 10 to 16 hours a day. Thousands of people were dying each year while on the job in miserable, macabre, and avoidable accidents. On May 3rd in Chicago, strikebreakers shot four strikers in their backs. The next day, four more people were killed. And finally the next day, a bomb went off in Haymarket Square. Eight were arrested with no evidence against them. Four were hanged, one died by suicide, and three others spent years in prison. May 1st is International Workers' Day. It's a day of recognition. Recognizing how far we've come, and at the same moment, recognizing how far we have left to go. How did we achieve the good things we have? Working on answering those questions? Unite here, a labor union with sensible slogans. That health care is a human right. That one job should be enough. We shouldn't be working 10 to 16 hours a day, two, three, four jobs. That CEO should not be making 280 times as much as the average employee when the ratio was 20 to 1 in 1950. That 45,000 people a year should not be dying because they're working but receive no health insurance. Representing over 300,000 U.S. and Canadian workers in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries, United here is made up of predominantly women and people of color. They are building a movement to enable people of all backgrounds to achieve greater equality and opportunity. A person can be calm, genuine, modest, and hardworking and still demand dignity. That's what culinary worker Heather proves. Heather simply demands dignity. Her brothers and sisters in Unite here local 226 at her side. The union helps provide protections against wage theft, deception, sexual harassment, overworking, and illegal retribution. These protections help Heather to be herself, a woman that simply works hard and helps people. She is a reminder that together we have the power to change our lives. Heather works as a food runner and buster in a unionized casino restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip. She's been a culinary union member and shop steward for five years. Having experienced low wages, harassment, and insecurity in non-union restaurants, she knows firsthand how the union difference, strong contracts, guaranteed benefits, and job protections can change lives. Heather spends her time on and off the clock defending her coworkers' rights, and she is currently canvassing with her union to get out the vote in Nevada ahead of the primary election. So happy May Day to all of you and welcome to Heather. Hey Heather, to start off, tell us what are some of the jobs you've had in your career?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Oh gosh. I started in fast food, I've done um fine dining, I've um sold insurance, I've worked retail, um, I was doing finance, um, selling mutual funds. Um then I went back to restaurants, to bartending, um, and moved to Vegas, and now I'm a food runner and busser at a restaurant on the strip.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Cool. So what got you into the restaurant industry and in Las Vegas?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Um, I always liked restaurants, just um serving people and people are in a good mood and food and fast-paced, and I always just liked the work, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Are you from Las Vegas originally?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Uh my parents actually moved here, and I kind of always, you know, Vegas and I work in restaurants. I was like, I should move there, probably do really well, make a lot of money. Um, I heard found out there was a union and I've always liked unions, but I thought I'd have to be a plumber or a carpenter or something. Um I was like, oh, there's a culinary union and it's hospitality, like I can work in a restaurant and get a pension and have insurance and all these job securities just to work in a restaurant. Like that was crazy to be. So yeah, I just when I moved here, I was like, wow, I need to join the culinary union.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Could you walk us through uh a typical day where it starts, how it goes?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Um well, I'm actually a shop steward in the union. So if I have sometimes I'll have meetings before my actual job. Um, like if the manager disciplines somebody, or if we think the contract's being broken, um, like on my volunteer time, I'll come in a little early. We'll have a meeting about whatever the issue is, um, if we can fix it or what we can do. Um, then I'll actually clock in and then start. I'll be either a busser or a food runner, and I just bus tables all night, or I run food, and you know, do that for eight hours and then clock out at the end, and that's my day.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Oh, that's so cool that you're a shop steward too. That's such an important, valuable role being that liaison between workers and uh the the management, the bosses. What kind of skills do you think are needed for someone in that role, but also in in your uh other culinary role as well?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Multitasking and just talking to people and kind of being ready for anything. Um, because we're on the Vegas Strip, we're a large restaurant, we're very fast-paced, very busy. Um we have travelers from all over the world. So you just kind of need to be ready for anything and um just be very flexible. And sometimes I'm a busser cleaning tables, but then I need to be a food runner, but then maybe I need to go get drinks, or there's kind of just different things and just kind of being up for anything, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

One of my favorite things about the restaurant industry, hospitality in general, is the regulars, people who you get to know their name, their their favorite thing that they like to order, or whatever, their personality. Do you get to interact with some regulars in in your role?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Um, it's actually pretty cool. We'll have some people that come to Vegas like three or four times a year. So we'll see them just you know, three or four times a year and we'll recognize them, but they live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or California. And so we still have regulars, but they're not like local regulars, if that makes sense. But then we do have local regulars too, actually. There's like a couple from Canada that we see a couple times a year. Um and our California visitors, but um they've come they're coming a little bit less, which is kind of sad.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Honestly, just our um our government policies right now, the economy. Um, everyone's just spending less, taking less vacations. So we're just yeah, seeing people less.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, exactly. Anytime I go to a store that I haven't been to in a while, I'm like stunned looking at these prices. Uh gas is crazy now with the Iran war, uh, which is uh disturbing. Uh house prices, it's unbelievable. And these food prices are simply not sustainable for people.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

What's one of the harder things about your job?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I mean, it sounds pretty easy. It's just busting tables or renting food. Um but a lot of work goes into it. You know, I take 25,000 steps a night.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

It's just it is a hard work. It's a lot of work. Um it sounds kind of easy, but once you're actually into it.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

25,000 steps is is absolutely no joke.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Um, yeah, it's pretty fast paced and like non-stop.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

What's your favorite thing or one of the best things about your work?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Um, I think when you can just make someone's night, you're just like serving customers and it's their birthday, or you know, they saved up money to come to Vegas, it's their first time. Just whatever you can like make special for them, I think is the best part for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

How long have you been in this role for?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

I've just been doing this for five years.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Okay, about five, five, six years ago, that was uh COVID time. What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, I came in um right after COVID, so we um saw the business kind of pick up when the economy, you know, slowly, slowly recovered. And then yeah, business just expanded. We're a popular restaurant, so we're just really busy. And it's like things were going really well, and then everything just kind of now it's going downhill. We're you know, we're lucky we're a popular restaurant, but I see all the other restaurants on the strip and in my casino, they're cutting hours, they have less business, they're doing layoffs. Um, so we're just you know, we're lucky where we're at, but we kind of see what everyone else is, and even our business has kind of gone down. But everyone's just yeah, kind of making the best they can, and we're lucky to have good jobs that we do.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

What are some of the benefits of being in a culinary union like uh Unite Here?

SPEAKER_00 10:08

The restaurant industry, I mean, we have it really lucky because we're union here. Um, the restaurant industry as a whole, for most states, they only pay people like $2 an hour. Um, it's very exploitative to the front of house and back of house. Um a lot of undocumented labor they'll take advantage of. That's you know, the restaurant industry. I worked in different states too. Um but then moving here, I see whether it's union and you know, I have defined roles. I'm not doing eight different jobs a night. It's um it's very less stressful. I can take care of my family, I have good benefits. But um, you know, working in restaurants in other states, I just see the exploitation and it's hard, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

So tell us more about Unite here, your union. I think 300,000 people nationally and a big contingent in Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

We've started in 1935. Um, all the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are unionized with us. We have about 60,000 members currently. Um, we have a pension, we have guaranteed job security, we get raises every year. Um, we cover housekeepers, restaurant workers, cooks, cleaners, um, pretty much everyone's hospitality in the casinos.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

One concern I heard about for casino workers is the customer smoking. It can, when you walk into a casino, there it can be a uh a smell of smoking uh because it is one of the few types of restaurants or public uh places where smoking is allowed, uh both in Atlantic City, uh, in New Jersey where I'm from, and Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah, I don't know like the specifics, what we've done with it. Um, like personally, I don't like smoking. I won't be a cocktail server because I don't want to breathe in cigarette smoke. Um we do have some casinos on the strip that are non-smoking. Um I think it is very bad for our health and our members, the older ones, they are feeling it from breathing in the cigarette smoke. Um it's a huge, I think it'd be a huge, huge legal battle, a huge issue. Um maybe one day, yeah, hopefully we can take on that fight, but there's a lot of fights going on.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

What types of issues or grievances or actions have you and your union been uh interested in or involved in?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, we do have a couple of different things going on. Um one thing is Allegiance Stadium where the Raiders play. Um it's non-union. Um we've been trying, it's been like almost 10 years now since they started building it to um get a card check to make it union. We do pickets all the time. We've turned in um petitions with signatures, um, and just like letting all our workers know to support them. That's one of our fights. Then we also have um stations casinos, we've been fighting them for a very long time. Yeah, they're owned by the Fertita family. Um, so they don't like the union, obviously, so they've been fighting us a long time. Um so we do picket them, we do leaflets, we kind of have all our battles going on, and we all kind of take turns and help each other out and show up and support each other in our different fights.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

With Las Vegas being such a city of growth over the course of the last 30 years, but even uh exceptionally uh in the last five, ten years, it's excellent that you are working on establishing a precedent of worker rights and what businesses should expect with uh dealing with workers uh in the future. And you're in such a busy environment. How do you deal with stress at work with so many customers?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Uh we just do what we can if you know the customer's piling up, if the line's getting long. It's kind of on our managers to manage that. You know, we're only going to work so fast and we're not gonna be like, okay, everyone hurry, hurry, hurry, and you know, break your body and risk your safety or any like we don't do that to meet the end's needs. If our if there's a problem going on, you know, I look to the managers like, hey, what's time it better, or they need to figure it out so that we're not all freaking out just to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, some managers they may be uh pretty useless in in their help or their suggestions, like, oh, just go faster, figure it out. So that's excellent that they have you there to uh demand uh dignity and demand what you deserve. What else do you do as a shop steward?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Uh so I like enforce the contract if I see like management's doing something incorrectly. Um I just let them know, hey, this is incorrect, we should do it this way. Um or if it's bigger, we might have to have a meeting about it. Um if they discipline someone, um I could we can have a meeting about that and I defend them or correct it. Um it's kind of it's almost like the um the managers are like the police, and I'm the um like the Lloyd, the public defender, and then my workers are the people. So kind of like the in-between for managers and workers.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

That's an awesome analogy.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, that's how it feels, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Any examples you can share?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Um, so we have promotions in our restaurant, everyone wants to be a food server because you make the most money. And so our managers in our contract, we do it a certain way by seniority. You know, you take a test and if you pass it, it goes to the highest seniority. Um, but our managers were cheating on the test. Wow, like they weren't doing it, yeah. They weren't doing it by seniority, they were just kind of doing it by favorites, who they wanted to do. Um, something you would do in a non-union restaurant. But um, so we, you know, some of my work some of my coworkers noticed this and I noticed it. And so we got together and we came up with a plan, we had a meeting, we took it to the managers, we had to go to their boss, show them the contract, you know, they fought back against it and said, Oh no, we it says this, but it doesn't mean that, it means something else. So we say, No, no, no. And you know, it's this arguing back and forth at these meetings, but in the end, they're like, Okay, we lost, we have to follow this, you guys are right. We're gonna, you know, promote people by seniority, we're gonna follow this testing. Um, and so now they do it all correct. And that was a huge change, a huge win. Everyone was happy because now they know it's not favoritism, we're gonna do it by the book. And so that made all the coworkers happy, and so that was really good.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Nice work, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Sometimes jobs that are transient or typically historically part-time are difficult to um perform work actions or to unionize to begin with. Have you had any struggles with uh that?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Sometimes, but not too much. Um it's actually funny, sometimes we'll get people that are like, oh, I'm just here for six months or just for school or whatever. But then they see the money they make, they see the benefits, the job security, um, how we're treated better, and then they end up staying for longer.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

How does it feel to be a union member and a shop steward?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Um honestly, just because the unions here, it's like if managers talk they don't have to talk to me however they want to. Like they have to treat me with respect. I can't just be fired for any reason. I have benefits. I just I walk into work and I feel protected. I feel safe and it's like a security, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Sometimes in physical jobs, people or jobs that are just exhausting in any way, whether it's physical or mental or both combined, people kind of drift off or go into uh into the zone, or maybe they just kind of disassociate. How do you stay uh yourself? How do you stay heather um and true to yourself while managing so many different things?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Um whenever yeah, whenever I'm because I shift into zombie mode once in a while. Um I just yeah, honestly, I start talking to the guest. Because as a busser or food runner, you don't have to so much. You know, I can just drop off the food and say, Oh, here you go. Or I can, you know, talk to them, be like, oh, how's your evening going? Where are you from? Is this your first time here? And it they all talk to me back, and it's kind of just picks up a mood and just kind of lifts me up when I just talk to people more. So I'll do that often if I yeah feel like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

One of my favorite simple things about being in a union is you it's sort of like a brotherhood or a sisterhood, a fraternity, um a friendship and a camaraderie with with so many other people who you can look to for advice who you can be comfortable around and ask questions, ask for help. But that doesn't mean that there's still never arguments or disagreements. Have you had uh any of those situations where you know you you may have a disagreement with someone or uh an argument with a fellow union member?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Sure. Yeah, um let's see. Uh well I'm in a tip pull, so sometimes you know that can create a little bit of mess, but we're all in it together. So if someone's, you know, maybe they're um slacking off or just doing whatever, and we feel like you're not part of the team, we'll just kind of talk to them is kind of like a pep talk. Just hey, remind, hey, we're all in this together. You know, we're in a great restaurant, we have a great job, and we just kind of give them like a little pep talk, hey, we're in a team together, and that just kind of brings people back together.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

A strike is the classic uh but not very common labor action for unions. What type but there's far more common other ones? What types of conflict resolution or work actions have you been part of when dealing with management?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Um, yeah, honestly, like really just not following the contract. Kind of like I said earlier, where I'll show them the contract, it's plain black and white, you can read it, and they're like, no, no, this is wrong, no. File a grievance, I go to grievance, you know, da-da-da. File arbitration, no, no. Like that's the worst when you have it and they're just they don't want to budge, they don't want to negotiate with you or meet with you, or that's the worst. So then we have to get creative, we have to do like delegations, or there was one day where a bunch of us, we call it a forced early out, where we work half our shift and we tell the manager, hey, we have to go, and they charge us like an attendance point, but they have to let us leave. And so we did that one day as a protest. Uh so imagine you're at work and you get an emergency or you're sick or something happens and you have to leave. We have attendance points, so they'll just take away half your attendance points. But it's kind of no questions asked, you just get to leave. So if all of us, you know, we're in a tip pool, we're all together, and we'll say, hey, this is you know, this is making us mad, the managers aren't doing anything. Right now, if 10 of us leave, the restaurant's gonna, you know, have problems. Managers are gonna take us seriously, they're gonna fix our issue. Um, so that's what we've done before.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

And the restaurant can't run without you, so you can effectively shut it down. And if not shut it down completely, make a a a big statement.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Right. That's the most, yeah, the best tool we have is ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

What do you do to decompress after work?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Uh I exercise, drink tea, take a bath.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So you're not spending uh a lot of time gambling yourself?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I don't, no. I just I treat it as gaming. If I gamble maybe like twice a year, I'll just treat it as fun, but yeah, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Where do you think your leadership experience uh will take you in the future?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Um no, I like working for the union, um like the shop steward work that I do, um, and then once in a while I'll take a leave of absence and they'll kind of train me more on how to be an organizer or just do more things with the union. Um and honestly, I love doing that. I love helping people and showing people that they're strong and you have power. Um so honestly, I want to do that, just become like a full-time union organizer. Really, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Do customers ever share with you stories of their own uh adventures in gambling in Las Vegas?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Um, I mean you'll hear like, oh, I'm up a couple thousand, I lost a couple thousand.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Um That's pretty good. That's pretty big.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

There's yeah, there's some very um wealthy people that come here and lose a little, it's not it's nothing to them. But yeah, I don't we don't really hear about any giant wins or giant losses.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

With Las Vegas being a party city with so many tourists and drink a lot of drinking and gambling, are there any uh dangers that you have to be um aware of or you know, anticipate?

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, and then we're lucky we have security, so we'll call them right away. Um sometimes they can be a little slow, but we'll just, you know, like I said, we're gonna teamwork, so if there's an unruly guest, it's not like we're just gonna leave one person to deal with it until security happen shows up. We all kind of help each other, we call security and the managers step in and we know with security. Because in the past I worked, you know, in outside restaurants and you don't have security, so you know, as a bartender, I become like my own security.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

What would you say to someone who said that raising the minimum wage, fighting for union power, the Those things are not good for people. They just cost more money and make everything more expensive for people. What would you say?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

It's the I mean the corporations, their profit margins are still the same. They're they want to take the profits. It's not the union wages. It's um the people at the top taking more and more. Like the 1%. And we yeah, the union wages, it's so we can have a standard of living, which we barely even have anymore with groceries and gas. But it's the the people at the bottom, they want us to fight each other, the working class. We need to fight the people at the top.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Heather, you worked there for about five years. You've helped probably hundreds or even thousands of guests enjoying their time, making their trip fun and relaxing. You've also helped your co-workers as shop steward. What's something that you're proud about?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Honestly, when I got hired and started working at the casino in a union job, um, because I worked in non-union restaurants and you um you make less than minimum wage, you put up with sexual harassment, discrimination. Um every day is just like it's awful. There's no benefits, there's no security, you're just treated like trash, honestly. Um, and so getting hired here, like I like I almost want to cry right now how thankful I am. Just everything I have, and it's thanks to the union and all the work that they do and the fighting that they do, and that's why I'm want to join it and be a part of it and continue it, because it made such a difference in my life. And that really like that's the moment for me, like my career change where oh, I don't want to work in a restaurant forever. I want to be an organizer, I want to help more people. Um, you know, that's like my purpose in life is helping people. So that was like a really great moment for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Well said. Well, Heather, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Thank you, you too.