In 2008 Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein declared: “There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like a business.”
For the first time, the Senate had voted to privatize the restaurants and other food services on the Hill. Sure enough, those dining spots now turn a profit, because they’re being “run like a business” — specifically a business like McDonald’s.
Restaurant Associates, the New York outfit that got the House and Senate food contract, profits by paying poverty-level wages and generally mistreating the cooks, wait staff, and other people who put the “service” in food service.
Wages are less than $11 an hour, well below the very expensive cost of living in the Washington area. “Everybody has second jobs,” says one weary worker. And when our $174,000-a-year members of Congress adjourn for the three months or so of vacations they take each year, the food service workers are sent away with no pay at all.
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“I serve food to some of the most powerful people on Earth,” says a Senate cook. “They often talk of expanded opportunity for workers, but most don’t seem to notice or care that workers in their own building are struggling to survive.”
A key Republican committee chairman, Representative Tom Graves, recently showed how much Congress cares about inequality by refusing even to consider requiring food service contractors to pay a living wage.
“It’s really not within the scope of this committee to micromanage all contracts,” the Georgia Republican sniffed.
Think of how that makes the Capitol dining staff feel. If I were Graves, from now on I wouldn’t eat anywhere in the Capitol without taking a food taster with me.
