Monday, July 27, 2020 - 86ed List

Video Subtitles:

27th and today i'm going to be talking
about
the hospitality industry and how to hold
toxic culture accountable
some recent developments over the past
few weeks
has really got me thinking about this
and so i wanted to go over those things
and so talk about
what are some things happening right now
maybe even some controversial things
happening right now
that is getting
people excited about holding toxic
cultures accountable
having those conversations um
you know be it hospitality industry or
any industry but
specifically in the hospitality industry
something has come out in the past few
weeks
it's been kind of interesting
called the 86th list so to be
86 is an industry term
for someone who's not allowed back so
someone who was
so disrespectful uh that they're not
allowed back
and so now this term is being used by
individuals within the hospitality
industry to hold their
employers accountable for their toxic
or potentially toxic environments
so
i'm gonna go over that so there's not
much information uh so
maybe like two or three weeks ago i got
followed on instagram by an account
called 86 list lv so that's a
las vegas account for the las vegas
community
uh and it looked quite interesting there
was no post just yet i could tell it was
a brand new thing and so then
um you know i saw that there were some
other like 86 list accounts
that were following that account
um and so that's what kind of took me
down
some some other accounts that are more
established but even those accounts so
i think it's uh the eugene oregon
you know is the first one of this
particular movements
uh that community which uh
you know claims to be queer
people of color um you know appropriate
very appropriate probably by far the
the segment of the community that is
forgotten
and marginalized the most within
the hospitality community but even this
eugene oregon account which is the
original um
their account is called 86
so that's 86 d underscore list
and that's for the eugene oregon
community
and you can see on here there's a lot
posted
and really what they're doing is they've
created this platform so if you go to
their website they have a website
the 86list.com
they are based in l.a eugene bay area
las vegas and portland oregon and only
can
assume that more cities will follow and
on this website and also within the
direct messages
within instagram you can post anonymous
stories
of your experiences of
injustice within the hospitality
industry so the the tagline here
says anonymously sharing stories of
injustice racism
and abuse in the workplace submit your
story below
so i mean it doesn't say here on their
little bio
that it is specifically for the
hospitality industry but
uh it is very obvious in all the posts
and the community that they're forming
uh that it is within the hospitality
industry so this is interesting you know
and so i found one article
uh which is uh by the um oregon npr
network so they've been
tuned to it but oh yeah i was going to
say the eugene oregon account the
original account their very first post
is from june 30th so not even a month
old and they already have
so many uh posts and i've been kind of
following them
since i got that original follow from
the las vegas group which
the las vegas group i haven't seen
anything just yet uh posted
but from the the eugene group
seems that there was some kind of
controversy that some people were
feeling
like it was too controversial or
you know just like with anything um
people immediately think that this is
like
cancel culture that that we're just
trying to create
um you know a culture of hate versus
a culture of accountability which is
really what
you know these efforts are are
ultimately about
um so i'm just gonna get some tea ready
to drink i'm gonna drink some
uh 2017 wood roasted dongding
oolong this was a gift sent to me from
virginia and george
in texas so drink something a little
different today a little roasty dongding
so yeah these are very new developments
and i saw
another account if you you know just
search 86 list there's another one that
is much more populated
that has 22 000 followers 22.3
thousand followers for chicago and so
their um
their bio says anonymously share stories
of racism and abuse in the chicago
restaurant
industry submissions are now being
accepted via google form
so then they have a form here um
yeah and just posting the story they
pretty much just like copy and paste
the um the exact anonymous message
and they call out the exact names and
they give very specific stories
and there's lots of engagements on these
posts
so even the chicago one if you go to
their very first post that's from june
5th so i think that the chicago
may have been the first group to start
putting this
i'm together to search again there's got
to be more articles i could only find
that one
article um from eugene
but i i would like to go to the origin
like who who were the people that first
thought of this and had the courage to
to put this up on the internet and and
try to encourage people
um to share their stories and and
let the community know and let the
industry
know so that they can better hold each
other accountable
for these toxic environment and toxic
cultures
that we're working with within the
hospitality industry
yeah there's nothing here i mean when
it's an anonymous group and
it's something that's like um
exposing truth in established business
uh yeah not a lot of news written about
it
so that's why i'm talking about it today
letting you guys know that you can
follow these things and try to stay
engaged with these conversations and
it's interesting if this will be a trend
that we'll see across
other industries as well where workers
and anonymous groups
will create these forums discussion
forums to
share stories stories are so powerful
actually this morning i was
on um just instagram text texting
ray from london
we've had some interesting experiences
recently
on saturday as part of the nomad tea
festival we were both on a panel
talking about sustainability and tea in
the tea industry
and had some very oh this is interesting
looking tea
i don't know if it's gonna be good we'll
see um
and a little bit of a conflict between
these different basically it's
it could be applied to anything right so
if you see a problem
and in this case the problem was
sustainability the problem was
trees being cut down um you know
communities of people being marginalized
and there's two ways that we can
approach the solution
right we can approach it by like fitting
the solution on top of the system as it
already is
or we can do it by
fitting a solution and and also
like changing the system itself
at the same time and ever since
i you know was like first on my journey
of this work
i always thought it would be better to
um to change the system as well
not huge changes i mean we know that we
can't make
these like upside down flipping changes
they don't work
but um
to think that the world operates as a
you know vacuum outside of our own
influence
is is missing out on a lot of
opportunity
right and so um
you know there's in in this case in
particular with the t
there's this argument oh we can we can
plug the sustainable
oh good for you nick thanks for drinking
tea i'm drinking some
roasted dongding
we can um
just accept the system the way it is
like let's let's say for example like
the
consumerism system the commodity
consumerism system which is
the core of like all of these problems
if we just accept that as what it is and
then to try to fit
the solution on top of that we get
something like fair trade certified or
you know all of these other things that
we've come to like trust which
are not really serving us the way that
we want them to be serving us
versus the other path where you you put
those incremental
influences and changes to um
this tea is very roasty it's good though
it's it's a lot more mellow than i
thought it would have been based off of
how it was brewing
um versus like taking your time and
taking the baby steps and planting the
seeds to
inspire those changes in the system that
would be a better host
for the solutions that we want to apply
so
in the case of of the hospitality
industry
and what's going on here you know
it'd be like saying oh we can have a
solution to
you know the dignity of workers within
hospitality
uh the issues of wage and of treatment
of workers and
as what's being identified in these
expose
stories as part of the 86 list movement
is accepting that that toxic culture
is it is what it is and we can't do
anything about it and trying to fit a
solution on top of that
is really not going to to serve us or to
serve the world
um in the community so
you know i was talking with ray this
morning and she's she's she's like
asking me if i
don't don't i just get angry because
she's like she's starting to see
um you know i think she's been building
a really great company and she
you know she comes from the roots and is
has just been doing it from that way but
now
that um these conversations have become
so heated and inclusive of so many
different people especially
uh major stakeholders within the
industry she's starting to see
the reality that not everybody who
claims to be
sustainable not everybody who claims to
be you know an ally of
um you know a good future have
have made that commitment to creating
the new system
are still like stuck and just accepting
that
the way it's been is just the way it's
going to continue to be and
that's not going to like leave any space
for resolution or for
solutions to be applied here um so
long story short we need to
uh be bold right the time is now like i
i always say that like any of my friends
would know like i'm always saying
something like that just to be bold and
just do it
but even with that you know like i
myself have been very like
holding back on like holding my peers
holding my mentors holding everybody
including myself accountable for uh
toxic behaviors
whatever they may be um so you know that
brings in the conversation which was
talked about in this npr
article about this and so this article
is titled anonymous groups share stories
of workplace toxicity in eugene's
springfield service industry
it says employees across the country
have turned to social media to create
what is called an 86 list account to
share their stories of workplace
toxicity
locally eugene and springfield base
account is sharing the experiences of
local employees
in a message the anonymous group wrote
the account is managed by queer and
community members of color in eugene who
currently work in the service industry
they said they are not promoting cancel
culture
and are not asking people to stop
visiting those establishments
the group wrote it is sharing these
stories to allow for public
accountability and
change it is not our agenda to have
these businesses cancelled right the
group cancel culture can be dangerous
considering we believe people
and the workplace environment can change
all right so holding like if you're
gonna hold someone accountable you also
have to hold space for them to make the
changes necessary
for resolution so you know that's
important
this is something that could be applied
to all types of communities
um you know like let's say the the metoo
movement for example there is a lot of
criticism that
that movement as powerful as it is
has created this whole cancel culture
that scares everybody and is like oh the
wrong accuser comes forward and you're
cancelled
and it's um kind of true
but then when you create an
open source platform kind of like this
86 list
where it's not just trying to um
you know finger out like or point out
like
one culprit or uh
another culprit is like it's like
everybody and it's it's like there's so
many people that are on this list
that um but it's funny they use the term
86 list because
86 means not allowed back and they're
like oh we're not trying to tell you not
to go but
um no i get that it's important same
thing whenever um
you know whenever we talk about the
truth of a certain product
like maybe it's authenticity or maybe
it's sustainability
if the the person consuming it still
wants to consume it they they're still
going to have that choice and they're
still going to do that
but having the information about their
practices about
you know what employees within those
organizations have to say about their
experience of working there
can help the consumer
hold that company accountable for
you know being a good employer creating
a loving and collaborative environment
and culture for their employees versus
this toxic culture
so so far this article is from july 24th
so it's it's recent so so far the
instagram page has accounts from
employees at roughly 30 local businesses
so for a market like eugene oregon 30 30
businesses
is a lot of businesses so it's it's
interesting whenever you create this
kind of like flood
of stories it's like it's
it's not about holding each one of them
accountable
and shaming them it's like shaming the
culture
overall it's like everybody's having
problems
there are stories from everywhere
um and that could be powerful for us to
create
uh you know even for the tea industry um
and how powerful
a list like this could be for all of the
hospitality industry of
you know the whole country
i don't know how far this will get but
it's interesting and actually i haven't
seen
the las vegas 86 list lately
let's see
so there's 115 followers
and no stories yet
so we'll see they're posting recently
so it's kind of cool they're using this
channel to promote
um you know social services
uh for the local community
yep the governor of
nevada is going to be speaking to the
public uh
this afternoon or this evening i'm not
too sure when
so we'll have to see what updates there
are for
mandates for the restaurant industry
which will have a huge impact
on this community
but these stories actually like if you
look at the stories from
from chicago from eugene a lot of the
stories are not
pandemic related
a lot of these are just like straight
out first name calling people out
yeah yeah i don't know i just like i
wanted to talk about this thing one to
let that you guys all be informed about
this thing the 86 list find it there
might be one coming to your city soon um
but also you know to talk about the
overarching
topic of cancel culture of holding
toxic culture accountable how do we
effectively do this
um you know so something for hospitality
industry
that has been said and and and the
toxicity
in the
equitable distribution of
you know wages and tips to service staff
as well as cooking staff
a trend that started about four or five
years ago
was no tipping getting rid of
tippy which
tipping has an interesting history in
itself
of uh you know having its roots in
in enslaved culture
of course you know we're not insinuating
at all
that service
service employees are are treated in
that way but
the roots is coming from that so a lot
of people cite that
that that tipping allows the consumer
even to discriminate
you know who who they think is worthy of
making more money over someone else
um and so there is a lot of disparities
within
race within sex
you know that tipping allows so there
was a movement
several different chefs have joined this
movement and actually there's kind of
like reverting back from this movement
that's the updated news of no tipping
and the restaurant increasing everything
on their menu at least 20
so that when the check comes in there is
that additional 20
which then the restaurant will split not
only with the service staff
front of house but also with back of
house
um and so you know when this trend was
first coming on there was a lot of
optimism you know now there's there's
not so much optimism there's actually
optimism
you know for the reverse of i told you
so that wouldn't work
because yeah it's true like even though
that practice has its roots
in something you know not healthy
uh it is what it's become in modern
times
and service staff are typically
very happy with that and they're
motivated by it as well
um because they're sales people
you know especially if they're they're
they're front of house
facing the consumer having the
opportunity to upsell
different experiences to that to that
customer
that's where tipping or some type of
incentive based pay
structure will help the server
in the restaurant you know i guess if
if the um if that sales person knows
that
they're only you know going to make a
portion of that additional 20
on the menu item then they may not be as
motivated
and enthusiastic about upselling things
versus with the tipping system or some
are actually now advocating for a
commission based system
then you are you're directly motivated
you know that if you sell this thing
you're going to make
you know that whole bonus back you know
for that value add to the business
so the trend started and there was
really only one group
um danny meyer
that kept it going and actually
he just came out eater new york came out
with an article
on july 20th so this is last week
saying that uh he's going to abandon
that policy and move back to the tipping
policy
due to a coronavirus
crisis
saying that the servers are not able to
um
you know essentially what that is is
they're probably just wanting to
encourage
the consumer to uh provide more value
because now i think consumers are
tipping you know up to 40
regularly uh due to you know the
conditions so
if there's no tipping then there's no
opportunity for the
the customer uh who is really grateful
for their experience of dining would
like to tip their server
so it's interesting
this is what he wrote
i wanted to read his letter he wrote a
letter on linkedin
let's see how long it is it's short
enough to read it it was pretty long
that's not that long
he says in 2015 we embarked upon an
experiment to move away from tipping in
each of our restaurants beginning with
the modern and eventually converting
each of our union square hospitality
group restaurants over the next several
years
understanding that eliminating tipping
ran counter to every cultural norm
american restaurant goers
had come to expect we nonetheless
created a new compensation model called
hospitality included
factoring full livable wages and
benefits for all of our employees into
our menu prices
we were determined to make bold stride
and fixing an ever widening gap
wage gap between the dining room front
of house team and those in the kitchen
back of house
in new york and washington dc
it remains illegal for tips to be shared
with the kitchen team and so every time
menu prices would increase due to
inflation
higher rents or food cost only the
dining team
dining room team saw their income rise
while kitchen wages remained somewhat
stagnant
over the course of nearly five years
hospitality included
was able to make some strides in
narrowing the wage gap
but it was never easy to make a math
make the math add up for all
stakeholders
even far more robust economic times
without appearing onerous to guests our
menu prices needed to cover
100 of our operating costs including an
array of extended employee benefits such
as family leave
sick pay esl classes and a 401k
matching plan dining room compensation
would need to be competitive with other
restaurants where tipping was the norm
to assure that our dining room team
members would be motivated to provide
exceptional service and hospitality even
in the absence of receiving tips from
our guests
furthermore guests would need to
understand a system that would only
allow them to say thank you by voice and
not permit them to do so monetarily
and somehow the equation would need to
lead to
profitability so that shareholders who
philosophically supported the system
would also see hospitality included as a
sustainable business model
this is very intelligently written i
like it
i don't even have the comments on
during the past four months of enforced
city-wide shutdowns
while we've been unable to welcome
guests into our restaurants
instead providing a limited selection of
meals for takeout and delivery
we've had ample time to contemplate how
our restaurants might best
operate when we are one day able to
reopen
the only thing we know about the
restaurant economy is that no one can
possibly know what it will look
like next when will people feel safe
enough to return to restaurants and
droves
when will schools reopen thereby
allowing workers to return to offices
an essential predicate for restaurants
doing a serious lunch business
when will visitors once again travel to
our cities for pleasure and for business
and crucially will restaurant
professionals already roiled
by months of layoffs decide it's worth
returning to an industry that has
already proven its instability in the
face of the pandemic
it's against the precarious and
unpredictable backdrop that we are
concluding the chapter on hospitality
included
and reopening with tips all the while
advocating for policy changes that will
introduce more much needed equity into
the compensation system
we've come to believe that it's the
inability to share tips
that is the problem not the tips
themselves our ultimate goal is for your
tips to be shared among our entire team
so both kitchen and dining room teams
can benefit when a guest has a great
experience
that will take a shift in public policy
and we are actively doing all
we can to persuade state and federal
lawmakers
to make that change in the interim we
remain committed to maintaining the
progress we've made in narrowing the
wage gap with hospitality included
and so while at presents your tip can
only go to our dining room tea
team our restaurants will be providing a
share of revenue for everyone in the
kitchen
from receiver to pot washer to lead cook
and we'll be increasing total
compensation by an average of 25
over our full-service restaurants where
do we go from here
well it will take legislative change our
ideal model might look similar to one
we've seen from the california chef and
restaurant tour
jessie cool which she calls heart of the
house
in california and several other states
it is legal to share tips among all
employees and when a full minimum wage
known as one fair wage is paid to all
workers as opposed to the tipped minimum
wage paid
to tipped restaurant employees in states
like new york
heart of the house encourages teamwork
among all employees responsible for
providing your meal by paying
everyone one fair wage to begin with and
then allowing you to express your
gratitude which is shareable among
all who contributed to your experience
over the past five years i've been
beyond grateful for the courage and
growth that countless
professionals have shown in overcoming
cultural challenges and
ingrained societal norms to implement
hospitality included
never losing their collective
commitments to delivering hospitality to
our guests
while we wait to reopen our dining rooms
we remain as committed as ever to
seeing our employees fairly compensated
and will continue to advocate for laws
and business models that allow that to
happen
we can't wait to see you and in the
meantime whenever you die and please tip
as
generously as you're able
heart of the house that's cool i'm gonna
check this one out jesse cool heart of
the house
oh that's cool yeah i'll research that
for next time
was in palo alto fleece street cafe
menlo park
ziff that's a cool name i guess that's
just
so there are solutions
and there aren't too you know so like
all of these chefs that have tried this
no tipping
tried to make things more equitable you
know it's all in an attempt to
improve those toxic conditions
which the toxic conditions are ranging
from lots of different issues like if
you read the stories from the 86 list
there's a lot of sexism
there's a lot of racism discrimination
against one employee or another employee
from their boss
treatment of how their hours are or how
their pay
is
if the environment was more equitable
and more empowering and more
collaborative focus and team focused
there's going to be a lot less room
and opportunity for those types of
discriminations
to be happening so there's a lot of
power
in fixing this one particular problem
which yeah he says in his
linkedin letter that the problem isn't
necessarily
the tips or how much tips it's how
they're getting shared
that's interesting i didn't know that
different
states had different regulations about
how the tips can be shared among
employees
it looks like this is a podcast
love this there's a photo of her making
a cocktail
and it says jessie cool preparing her
nightly martini
years i need to ask jean about her
hi amanda
yeah this is a podcast i'll have to
listen to it i'm looking for some text
that talks about this
heart
heart of the house
new tipping policy
i shouldn't say tipping policy yeah it's
not tipping it's a
new value chain policy
in the restaurant
that's so interesting everything about
her
in this policy is all like hidden
underneath
this other guy's story but 40 years
running a business for 40 years and
making changes like that's pretty
incredible
yeah i might have to look more for this
but yeah this guy danny um danny meyer
is not the
only one that's abandoning these plans
actually
he was the first one to start it and
then uh this was like four years ago and
then
several other chefs followed but then
soon after
like months after they all realized this
doesn't work
and a lot of them cited it it wasn't so
much that it didn't work for the
employees that it didn't work for the
consumer it didn't work for the customer
a customer likes having that freedom to
be able to express their gratitude
um you know so
yeah maybe the tipping itself is not so
bad the culture of tipping has changed
you know even though it's derived from
this very
oppressive culture
it's changed it's evolved to a new
culture where that's
our opportunity as consumers as
you know the ones enjoying that
hospitality experience it's our chance
to say thank you
and show our gratitude
but yeah oh and by the way
yelp put out their new numbers for
the month they didn't they they only
updated it for
so but on june 15th the number
of permanent closures on yelp's database
for the country was 53
and then now um the new numbers from
july 1st just a few weeks after
is 61
and you know we're going through a
pretty mass
kind of second closing throughout the
country not everywhere but in a lot of
places a lot of important markets
california
in particular they are they've had to
close down again for indoor dining
so that is going to be very troublesome
for businesses
hi kevin good to see you
i'm talking about the no tipping system
today and also the 86 list i don't know
if you've seen that
um that's a list where you people can
anonymously
report toxic work environments in the
hospitality industry
so amanda you asked i wonder how many
clothes due to yelp's
tactics and building uh billing scams
yeah um
you're right about that but you know to
have your
your business listed on yelp with your
open hours
uh doesn't cost you anything so if a
business
you know knows what they're doing even
remotely they're gonna have they're
gonna have their hours listed on yelp
that's why i kind of feel like yelp's
numbers are pretty
pretty good to look at you know because
um
that's where marketing for food
businesses happens these days
and yes it's overpriced and you know
not returning value for a lot of people
that are paying for their like
promotional services
but just to have your business listed in
the catalog is is free and most
businesses will do it so
i would think that like a small business
owner would be more prone
to update their yelp hours before they
update their google
business hours
just because yelp is such a powerful
channel for
um restaurant discovery you wouldn't
want to be missing out on that
so yeah as of june 15th 53 had
permanently closed
like they were listed as permanently
closed not even just temporarily closed
i forget the number of restaurants
temporarily closed
but permanently close it went from 53 to
61
just within a few weeks um and so yeah
we should
expect to see that number go way up um
you know but uh not always a negative
thing
you know just like um you know in in his
letter
on linkedin he said hey this pandemic
help us put our head down and realize
that what we were working on and what we
were trying wasn't working so
we should try something else um
so yeah i think i'm gonna go
soon i've pretty much covered everything
i wanted to cover
again if you want to keep up with that
other movement the 86 list
very interesting holding
toxic culture accountable holding
businesses accountable for their
target culture i look forward to see
what gets listed for
for vegas because a lot of interesting
stories that i've even heard from
from vegas here um
cool so yeah there's one in chicago
there's one in
eugene portland la san francisco
and it looks like the chicago one is
definitely the most
populated with stories so that one is
the
86th list if you want to find it on
instagram the 86 list
all right everybody well
this is not cancel culture we're not
canceling anything
we're making things better that's what
it's all about
so i'll see you guys soon thank you so
much
for uh being here with me