By Carl Hintz
Since the start of April, 15 servers in the dining department at Searstone retirement community in Cary have been on strike.
The workers are demanding written confirmation that a former hospitality manager named Aris is permanently removed, a $25 per hour base pay for all dining department workers, the reinstatement of wrongfully terminated workers and those who were forced to resign due to poor management, and an apology to residents to take accountability for poor management.
On Tuesday, May 12th workers and community supporters held a picket and protest at the retirement community. About 20 people were in attendance.
Failure to protect underage staff
One of the flashpoints for the strike is Searstone’s failure to protect its workers against inappropriate comments and abuse. On May 1st, I spoke with Nicole who is one of the striking workers.
Nicole reported that her co-worker who is a minor was groped by one of the residents. The underage co-worker provided a written statement to the manager. The manager said “We won’t let any female servers serve this one resident, but we also don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable.”
Nicole said, “that solution was never implemented. A lot of us have had to serve him since then, so [the inappropriate comments and the inappropriate touching] never stopped. We are wondering, why didn’t they do anything about this? It was a failure to protect our underage female staff.”
At the May 12th picket, protesters directly called out this behavior, chanted “When underage servers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”
Retaliation and wrongful termination
Tineshia, a worker who was wrongfully fired, recounted what led up to her termination. After Aris, a manager who was particularly disrespectful to women yelled at her repeatedly, Tineshia decided to go to HR with a co-worker. However, HR had already left for the day. Instead of addressing the issue, Searstone fired Tineshia on the basis that she left her section.
Tineshia said that despite what happened she would like to continue working at Searstone if things would change and if they removed the writeup from her record because the writeup was not accurate or fair.
The worker I spoke to earlier, Nicole, confirmed Tineshia’s account: “One of my co-workers was on her way to HR to report the discriminatory behavior from [Aris]. HR happened to not be there at that time.
When she got back, she continued her job, later that day she was sent home, and eventually she was fired for ‘leaving her section’ which is definitely BS because if she had gone to the bathroom or something, they would not have fired her,” Nicole said.
Solidarity In The Face Of Hostility
During the picket several residents spoke with the workers about their concerns and were supportive of the workers. Community members also turned out to support the picketing workers and the workers’ strike fund has raised over $2,000.
However workers also face hostility as they demand fair treatment. The VP of Management/Operations, Brandon Hair, appeared to take video of picketing workers as he drove into work, possibly with the intention of retaliating against the workers.
Video of the picket shows a landscaper spraying the picketers with a garden hose while gesticulating with her middle finger.
Low compensation for difficult work
Workers in the dining department at Searstone start at close to $15/hour. One employee who had worked at Searstone for a couple of years received less than a half dollar raise, Nicole said.
However, compensation is not consistent. Workers noticed a pattern that some staff who have family members that live in the retirement community received a higher starting pay or were able to ask for higher pay.
Servers are often overworked and berated when they ask for help. A manager previously stated that some servers could do the work of 2 or 3 servers, an attitude reflective of poor management and results in understaffing and overwokred employees.
The nature of the work is that of a busy restaurant and servers are also expected to help set up for events which require them to work late into the evening.
The challenges of working at a retirement community were further highlighted as the picket was winding down. A resident in an apparent state of confusion walked towards a busy road and EMS had to physically stop the senior citizen from heading into fast moving traffic.
Some positive change, but inaction on other key demands
Maintaining the strike has led to some concessions from the company. An email from HR to an employee stated “effective immediately, Aris will be stepping away from day-to-day staff interaction while this process continues.”
At first Searstone management refused to meet with the striking workers as a group and wanted to meet with the workers individually, but the workers insisted on meeting as a group.
In late April, management did meet with the striking workers as a group. At this meeting it was verbally stated that Aris was “removed.” However, the company has not provided workers with written confirmation regarding Aris’ employment status.
At the time of publication, Searstone has not met workers’ demands for higher pay ($25/hr base pay for all dining department employees) and reinstatement of wrongfully terminated employees, so the workers remain on strike.
Donate to the strike fund
To support the striking workers you can go to chuffed.org/project/177777-strike-fund-ongoing-strike-at-searstone.
The strike fund goes to striking workers at Searstone who have the greatest financial need.
The strike fund link also provides a phone call script to call Vanessa Hernandez (HR): (919) 234-0406 and Brandon Hair (VP of management/operations): (919) 783-0735, to show support for striking workers.
Carl Hintz is a contributing editor for Triangle Free Press.