BEHIND THE FANCY DECOR OF AN ENGLISH PUB…

"I am pleased with your work, no European would put up with it, even for an hour"

I started working as a dishwasher in June 2000, at the Frog pub in Bercy village. I signed a contract without knowing what it said. I don't speak or read French. The boss's assistant I was dealing with, and with whom I can talk, translated nothing for me. I started working on the evening shift. I arrived at the restaurant at 4 PM and got off at 12:15 AM. From the first day, I wanted to quit. The dishwashing machine is very small, and is made to handle 20 to 25 customers, whereas there are between 350 and 400 customers every night. I looked for another job but, because of not knowing the language, I couldn't find anything.
Now I work evenings or mornings, sometimes both. You never know in advance. There is a weekly plan, but it is drawn up on Sunday night for the coming week, and sometimes it isn't done at all. Often, the boss's assistant calls us up and asks us to come to work…
The kitchen is very small. There isn't enough space for the whole kitchen staff. There are fourteen of us. It is hard to work, particularly when it gets busy and when the waiters also come into the kitchen. When there are mistakes with the orders, we don't have enough space for the plates, and we stack them where we can…on the floor. Sometimes we have to stop work because, without space, the chef, his assistant and the others can't keep up. Sometimes, when the waiters bring the dirty plates into the kitchen, they leave them in the garbage can, and when the boss sees that,  he chews out everyone on the kitchen staff. We don't work fast enough!
We have no bathrooms and no place to change clothes. The waiters and kitchen staff have to use the customer bathrooms. We wash in the sinks where we wash the salad.
We have told the boss several times that it is difficult to work in these conditions, but he didn't want to hear about it. Once, he replied that he was happy with my work because no European would put up with it, even for an hour.
It was a friend who told me that we have rights. That was a year ago. We talked with the rest of the kitchen staff and we handed our demands to the boss. His reply was to send out more than thirty warning letters and to fire two of us. Before the strike started, he came to see us in the kitchen and wanted to force us to sign something without explaining what it was. We refused. They were in fact letters of resignation. When the boss started firing us, we decided to strike.
The waiters aren't striking with us because they don't have the same interests. The waiters work on contracts of only two or three months. Like the boss, they are English. They're from the same community. They don't rebel. If the boss found out I was making this statement, I'd be getting another warning.
By striking we want the customers to know about our working conditions. Our demands also affect them…and if the customers help out on the picket lines, the boss will have to give in. We need outside help because we don't speak French. When they have to deal with Europeans, the police and the boss don't have the same attitude, they don't say that we have no rights.

By a striking kitchen worker from Frog