i work at a pretty well known restaurant in LA and we currently have signs up that say, “employees are not allowed to use the first OR second floor guest bathrooms or they will be immediately written up.”
beyond this being inherently dehumanizing that employees are seen as unworthy of using the same fucking TOILETS as guests, it’s a restaurant. we wait tables on the first floor, so if a server needs to run to the restroom during service, they have to make sure their section is ok long enough to run up 2 flights of stairs and back. to top it off, the “employee bathrooms” are disgusting, never stocked, usually broken, and the sinks don’t have hot water.
CA labor laws say a business needs a certain amount of toilets available and such, and there are at least 5 available total if we ignored the rules, but this restaurant has over 50 employees clocked in at any given time.
this is also just the tip of the ice berg. to give y’all a concept of where their heads are at in the owner/gm circle, i was having a convo with the gm recently about how we’re short staffed and lost a lot of servers recently. i asked if she thinks there’s a reason for the high turn over and loss off staff. she didn’t miss a beat and said “i don’t think we’re finding people who align with our values. i mean, i don’t think WE are doing anything wrong here.” i need a new job.