- Waffle House restaurants have developed a reputation for violent incidents over the years.
- Workers frequently have to manage angry or intoxicated customers, some of whom are armed.
- In response, some employees in South Carolina have unionized, demanding better security and pay.
For Southerners, Waffle House is known as a place where you can get a hearty meal, hot coffee or ice-cold sweet tea, and quick, friendly service at any hour of the day or night.
But the roadside diner chain also has developed a reputation as the scene of outlandish violence, documented in police reports, TikTok videos, and, of course, media coverage.
Even Saturday Night Live has chimed in with a sketch earlier this year featuring an escalating Waffle House brawl as the background of a high school heartbreak between Jenna Ortega and Marcello Hernández.
But for the workers who frequently have to deal with angry or intoxicated customers — some of whom are armed — the threat of violence is a serious concern.
“I’ve had guns in my face,” Jessica Gantt, who has worked for the company for more than 20 years, told Rolling Stone. “I’ve seen fights, everything, right before my eyes while on shift. I’ve had to clean up blood from the lobby area because people were cutting on each other.”
Naomi Harris told the publication that in just two months on the job, she has already been threatened by a customer with a gun who was “mad about some hashbrowns.”
“I shouldn’t have to go into work and think I’m about to die,” Harris said.
Earlier this month, Harris and Gantt joined three other co-workers from their Columbia, South Carolina, restaurant who walked off the job during a Saturday morning breakfast rush, calling on the company to increase security staffing, as well as other wage, scheduling, and workplace demands.
In particular, the location only has a security guard on-site between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. on weekends, but the workers say the violence occurs at any time of day.
Representatives for Waffle House did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on this story.
About two dozen other labor organizers joined the Waffle House workers for a three-day strike, backed by the newly formed Union of Southern Service Workers. The USSW is a cross-sector union of hourly wage workers that emerged last November out of the Fight for $15 movement. The Fight for $15 was an initiative of the Service Employees International Union.
A week before the strike, the workers submitted a list of demands to management, but said they received no response. Instead, the USSW says management illegally retaliated against the workers involved with the letter.
“I’ve been cut down to (working) three days a week now,” said Shae Parker, according to the Columbia Post and Courier. “I went from a 45-to-51 (hours per week) schedule now to a 21-hour schedule.”
Waffle House denied engaging in unfair labor practices in a letter to employees that was shared with the newspaper.
The USSW is continuing its outreach to workers at other Waffle Houses, as well as at dollar stores, warehouses, and hotels across South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, with a rally planned for Saturday, July 22. The rally will take aim at workplace safety, living wages, and inconsistent-scheduling issues that are pervasive in the industry.
Nearly half of service workers in the South polled by the USSW said they have experienced violence or harassment in the past year on the job, and more than three-fourths said additional staffing would help them feel safer at work.
The escalation comes as 650,000 US workers across industries from entertainment to logistics and more are either on strike or preparing to strike in the largest such mobilization of labor in decades.
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