What is your opinion here Race gap seen in restaurant hiring?

Kitchen worker Carlos Garcia envies the waiters who make more money and suffer fewer aches than those like him in the "back of the house." The very term, common in restaurants, speaks to a divide that is conspicuous yet often overlooked by diners.



The division of labor plays out in Loop steakhouses and Wrigleyville sports pubs: Taking the order or seating the clients is the girl next door, most likely white, while a cadre of young Mexican men construct the meal behind the scenes.



In a first-of-its-kind survey released this month, a Chicago labor advocacy group detailed the segregation of restaurants and the unequal pay and working conditions that exist between the front and back of the house. It found that nearly 80 percent of whites work in the front, nearly two-thirds of Hispanics in the back.



Highlighting the issue, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago teamed with the Working Hands Legal Clinic this month to file its first federal lawsuit, against an Andersonville eatery that allegedly mistreated its kitchen staff. Meanwhile, the McCormick %26amp; Schmick's chain recently paid $1.1 million to settle a class-action suit by black employees who said they were passed over for jobs as hosts and servers.

But alleged bias explains only part of the story. For restaurateurs, choosing which employees are their establishment's public face involves complex perceptions of race and class. In some cases, they also are searching for a precise skill set necessary to help a customer pair the right Pinot with the filet mignon.



Sometimes, that process holds back not only minorities but white workers who don't have a model's good looks. Many immigrant busboys and dishwashers cannot realistically hope to become servers because they lack legal status or haven't mastered English.



Even as Chicago Restaurant Week showcases the city's culinary ambitions, Garcia has his own dreams. Next week, he will begin a course that teaches the basics of becoming a waiter, skills such as taking an order clockwise around the table.



"I would have a new path, a way to keep moving forward," said Garcia, a legal immigrant.



At Pequod's Pizza, owner Keith Jackson said he hates that other Lincoln Park restaurants want servers to look like fashion models. Jackson, who wears a ponytail and tattered T-shirt under a sport jacket, says servers can sport tattoos as long as they are personable.



But Jackson echoed the frustration of other restaurant owners, that young U.S.-born workers do not want the demanding jobs of dishwasher or line cook. He watched scores of applicants swarm a recent hiring fair: The prospective servers came in all ages and races; the young Spanish-speaking men on a side bench hoped to work in the kitchen.



Still, Jackson tries not to fall into stereotypes, using his own scruffy exterior as an example.



"You look at me and you'd think I couldn't pay my bill. I could probably buy your business 10 times over," Jackson said. "I don't want to follow all the other places who make a judgment based on how you look."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/鈥?/a>

Let鈥檚 see, they leave a country and come to another because they can鈥檛 get work in their own then when they are here and working all they want to do is complain about it ?What is your opinion here Race gap seen in restaurant hiring?
Back in 1961 author Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story titled "Harrison Bergeron." This article reminds me of how close we are coming to the plot of the story.



.....The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.



Vonnegut's story goes on to depict a dystopian future where competition has been stifled and equality for all is ensured by a system which mentally and physically handicaps individuals to the lowest common denominator, so that nobody is better than anyone else. Ultimately the story concludes with a confrontation between the title character and Diana Moon Glampers, the brutal and relentless Handicapper General seen in another Vonnegut work, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
people living and working here legally have every right to expect to have the same chances and rights as anyone else living here legally, citizens or not. that's what America is all about.What is your opinion here Race gap seen in restaurant hiring?
Typical