Chef José Andrés Met With Unionizing Push at DC Restaurant (1)

Employees of celebrity chef José Andrés are asking for a union at one of his elite Washington restaurants, presenting a test for one of the culinary world’s most outspoken advocates.

Employees at The Bazaar, Andrés’ upscale eatery that opened last year, presented managers with a petition of support Tuesday, seeking to bargain collectively for better pay, health care, and more transparent tip-sharing policies. The group Unite Here Local 25 is seeking to represent would include roughly 140 workers, including servers, food runners, and bussers.

The effort underscores how unions are increasingly willing to take on high-profile businesses in the public square. And it offers a look at organized labor’s emerging strategy of targeting restaurants attached to hotels and casinos where unions already represent hospitality and other workers.

Andrés has voluntarily recognized at least three unions in the past—a move that employers sometimes use to avoid an acrimonious election—including one in a suburban Washington restaurant that closed in 2020, said Paul Schwalb, executive secretary-treasurer of Local 25. But workers and organizers say this is a crucial test for Andrés, given his close relationship with President Joe Biden and the history of the building where The Bazaar is located.

“We are carefully reviewing the request and will respond shortly,” a spokeswoman for the José Andrés Group said in a statement Wednesday. “We are committed to a workplace that reflects the values of our organization.”

The restaurant sits two blocks from the White House and is located in the Waldorf Astoria hotel—formerly the Trump International Hotel—in the Old Post Office Building owned by the federal government and leased to the hotelier. The Bazaar is a jewel of Andrés’ portfolio—its website boasts a “curated symphony of shared plates” with “attentive yet unfussy service.”

Andrés, a naturalized citizen from Spain, was an early critic of former President Donald Trump and became embroiled in a legal battle in 2015 after reneging on an agreement to build a restaurant in the Trump hotel over the then-candidate’s remarks toward immigrants. The lawsuit settled in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

Andrés also founded World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that provides meals for victims of natural disasters around the world. He publicly supported Biden in the 2020 election and now co-chairs the White House Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition.

More than that, he has become a torchbearer of immigrant success in America.

“Jose Andrés is a role model in our community,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant workers. “I’m totally convinced—absolutely convinced—that he is going to do the right thing.”

‘Onstage’ Wait Staff

While many of Andrés’ restaurants are accessible to pedestrians, The Bazaar offers another level of opulence. Waiters must follow a strict dress code and are expected to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the menu, such as explaining how a liquid olive is made.

“When we clock in it’s like we’re onstage, and that’s the start of the show,” said Chacha Williams, a 31-year-old server involved in the union effort.

Front-of-house workers typically make $9 an hour plus tips, which are divided among the staff. But managers have changed the tip structure for tip distribution three times this year without warning, Williams said, making it difficult to predict how much she’s going to take home.

She also pays $400 a month for health insurance—a stark contrast to the unionized Waldorf Astoria workers who get fully-employer-paid care.

Unions are increasingly highlighting such disparities as a way to organize restaurants overall, a task made easier if the restaurant is connected to a unionized hotel. Las Vegas hospitality workers last year won the right to picket and leaflet in support of non-union restaurant workers on casino property as part of a last-minute deal with owners.

Daniel Rueda, a food runner at The Bazaar, was shocked to see a union poster in the employee locker room showing that Waldorf Astoria line cooks working for a separate restaurant in the hotel make $25 an hour—more than three times his hourly rate.

“We’re all providing an elevated service at a five-star hotel and a fine dining place like The Bazaar does,” Rueda said. “Why shouldn’t we have these things that they also have?”

Alexandria, Va., resident Evelyn Perez took a job as a silverware and glass polisher at The Bazaar when it opened, thinking she would make more at a high-end Washington restaurant. She was wrong.

Now a busser relying on tips, she said she may be taking home even less money than in her prior jobs.

“I hope to have better benefits and better pay and not have to be worried about counting my tips or keeping track of them,” said Perez, who spoke Spanish through an interpreter.