As some workers leave N.L.'s restaurant industry, what's to blame and what's the solution?

This is the second instalment of Help Wanted, athree-part series by CBC Newfoundland and Labrador examining labour shortages within the province's restaurant and food service industries.

When Stephanie Mauger moved to St. John's for university, she fellunder theallure of the service industry.

"I jumped and I didn't look back,and I committed 110 per cent," Mauger said.

Eight years of restaurant experiencelater, Mauger has looked back, and doesn't likeall of what she sees. It'sperspective, she said,enabled by the pandemic.

"Idon't know that it changed with COVID.Rather it was exposed with COVID," she said.

What was exposed, she said, was exploitation of workers,a lack of retention policies and professional development. "People are completely disposable in that industry, and I think most employers do look at it that way," she said.

She's now left the sector and returned to her studies, and sees many others tapping out too. It comes amid a worker shortage across Newfoundland and Labrador's service industries, as businesses struggle to find staff in the wake of the pandemic's onset.

It'sa tangly situation without a singleclear-cut explanation or solution, according to one labour relations expert.

"We're sort of grasping at straws a bit," said Gordon Cooke, a business professor atMemorial University.

One thing, to Cooke, is clear: "I just don't see small employers as being the culprit," he said. They could be offering only minimum wage or few benefits due to greed, or it could be because they're hanging on to their businesses by a shoestring, he said.

"Idon't think we're going to have hard data, even in a couple years, about the precise plight of employers in this province and beyond, during this crisis," he told CBC Radio's Crosstalk.

Similarly, it's hard for labour market analysis to pinpoint whether pandemic relief programs,like the Canada emergency response benefit, have truly kept people from re-entering the workforce, he said.

To Cooke, any CERB backlash oversimplifies long-standing issues that may be keeping people from the workforce, like public transportation.

"You get a single parent living in [Conception Bay South]that gets a job opportunity in Galway or Stavanger or downtown, you can't take it," he said.

"It's not the CERB solely to blame,becausethese problems existed for years and years and years. Ijust don't think we're making any headway on it."

'Thank God for the CERB'

Accessing the benefit didn't keep Audrey Brownfroma second stab at her industry after the first pandemic shutdown.

"Iwas laid off for almost fourmonths, Ithink, and thank God for the CERB," she said.

Brownhad 20 years of restaurant experience in St. John's when the pandemic hit and work vanished. She'd never relied on a government program before, she said, but her job skills hadn't translated into savings to see her through.

"It's a sad fact of reality: I'm approaching my 40s, and Ihave zero savings and Iam absolutely terrified for my future," she said.

Brown returned to her job when restaurants reopened in the late spring of 2020, but "the work was just so insane" with a reduced workforce, she said.

After a second COVID-19 shutdown, she said, she "kind of sat back and said, 'Is this really worth it?'"

"Ireally just don't think working 60 hours in fordays is worth what I'm being paid, and the stress of it all," she said.

She's switched industries, landeda job that has health benefits "it was a no brainer" and has no regrets.

Core inequalities, exposed

Brown's story touches on "key issue of our age," said Cooke."It's income inequality, and wealth inequality. These are massive societal issues, and it's a problem."

People work long hours and face huge physical and emotional demands, with littlereturn or security, but Cooke said tackling that inequality shouldn't fall squarely on the shoulders of small businesses.

"I think it's a wacky world that we live in, in North America, that small employers are under pressure to offer these things, when Ithinkthat they're a right for people to have," he said. The government should offer health and dental benefits, he said, even if that meansraising taxes on higher-income brackets.

"Ijust do not want to squeeze small businesses. We have to have small businesseswho have fiveemployees, we want them to get to 10," he said. Policy solutions need to look at the growing trend of shorter work weeks, and the rising number of low-paying jobs, he said.

A more inclusive approach to recovery is needed, according to the head of End Homelessness St. John's, a collaborative effort to battle poverty in the city.

"When the CERB was announced, it kind of allowed us to breathe a sigh of relief, to say, you know, our emergency shelter system is not going to be inundated with people losing their homes," said Doug Pawson, the organization's executive director.

CERBkept low-income earners housed and fed, saidPawson, and shouldn't be blamed as the sole factor for the current shortage. What Pawson does want to see is an examination of who is working in service, and how they can be helped.

"I think we need to come to grips that disproportionately women and racialized groups are the ones that occupy those jobs," he said.Economics must blend with social justice to find a way forward, he said.

"This crisis, if you wanted to call it that, it highlights just how important it is to work together. And you can't be blaming each other. You can't be pointing fingers at a federal program."

A $20-an-hour experiment

One restaurant has gone out on a limbas it tries to find a way forward that balances the needs of its business and its employees.

When Mallard Cottage opened its doors in 2013, owner and chef Todd Perrin said he had wanted to pay a living wage, instead of minimum wage plus tips,to his workers.

"Frankly, at that time, we didn't have the guts to do it," he said. He worried about how higher wages would force higher menu prices, and felt customers would balk at the bottom line.

Fast-forward to the restaurant reopening after the first wave of the pandemic, and a decision to offer a $20 starting wage.

"COVIDwas the catalyst for us, because we felt we were walking a tightrope,whether or not we were going to survive," said Perrin. "And I figured that if we aren't going to survive, then at least I was going to go out with my boots on, trying to do what Ialways wanted to do."

Perrin ran the idea by his staff, got their approval and made the switch. Nowtipping is acceptedbut not expected, he said, and his workers don't rely on those extras to get by.

Still, he said, "it's been very difficult. We're a little bit shorter on staff than we'd like to be," and the staff who are there are working hard.

Perrin hopes the model works, but said the future is tough to predict, both for Mallard Cottage and his sector as a whole.

"Theindustry is going to have to change,because it's not going to survive," he said.

"The model that has existed is not going to survive, and COVID is shining a light on the cracks that are inside of that industry across North America."

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