Workers at chef José Andrés’s glitzy Waldorf Astoria hotel restaurant are unionizing. On Tuesday, a supermajority of the Bazaar’s employees signed a petition announcing their intent to form a union with UNITE HERE Local 25. If recognized, the Bazaar’s 140 servers, bussers, foodrunners, cooks, and jamón cutters would become one of the few unionized restaurant workforces in DC.
The Bazaar’s employees are looking to bargain for better wages, more affordable healthcare, and more transparent tip distribution policies at the glamorous eatery, which Andrés opened last year in the majestic Old Post Office building that once housed the Trump International Hotel. They have high hopes for what unionizing can accomplish.
“I have kids who are American citizens, and they need to go to university,” says Evelyn Perez, a busser at the Bazaar who is originally from Guatemala, in Spanish. “I don’t want them to live through everything that I’ve been through. So I want José Andrés to support us with this, so our families can be happier.”
Organizers expressed hope that Andrés, as an outspoken and publicly altruistic figure, would be amenable to voluntarily recognizing the union. “We look forward to his response, says Benjy Cannon, a representative for Local 25.
If Andrés’s Think Food Group demurs, the union drive would enter the election process through the National Labor Relations Board, a more protracted and contentious undertaking.
Representatives for Think Food Group sent this statement to Washingtonian: “Yesterday we received a request for recognition of a bargaining unit to represent staff at The Bazaar in Washington. We are carefully reviewing the request and will respond shortly. We are committed to a workplace that reflects the values of our organization.”
Though the Bazaar opened just last year, Andrés’s plans to open the opulent Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant had been at the center of fraught politics since 2015. Andrés pulled out of his deal with Donald Trump’s organization after the then-candidate delivered his infamous comments about Mexican immigrants. The Trump organization sued Andrés’s group for $10 million, kicking off a high-profile legal battle that ended in a 2017 settlement.
Since the Bazaar finally opened last February, Politico reports it has become a power spot for Democratic players. After the Trump Hotel became the Waldorf Astoria in 2022, Politico writes, “spending time there has become a way for the Democratic elite to stick it to the former president.”
Today, employees say, the Bazaar is a challenging place to work, with high standards of service, frequent dismissals of employees for unclear reasons, shifting structures of tip distribution, and a base pay of $9 an hour before tips.
Seventy percent of the workforce signed on the the union push.
“We all do our best work, we’re motivated,” Perez says in Spanish. “We’re not the types of workers who just sit around with our legs crossed. And if the bosses where we work have high expectations and want us to talk a certain way and know so much, we deserve to have the same expectation for them to treat us right.”
UNITE HERE Local 25 represents more than 6,500 workers in restaurants, hotels, casinos across the DC area, but the latter two make up the largest share of the membership, as hotel and gaming workers are more likely to be unionized than restaurant employees.
Of the DC restaurants that have recently unionized with Local 25, the majority have been within hotels. Their most recent high-profile restaurant union drive involved Moon Rabbit, along with other hotel workers, in the InterContinental hotel at the Wharf.
Management has voluntarily recognized at least three unions at José Andrés restaurants in the past, but all of them—FISH by José Andrés at MGM National Harbor, and two restaurants at the Conrad Los Angeles—have also been inside hotels.
Cannon of Local 25 believes this is because restaurant workers in hotels are working side-by-side with the hotel’s union workers, who often have better pay and benefits and more job security. That’s the case at the Bazaar, Cannon says.
“These workers share the same locker room with union workers who pay zero dollars for their healthcare, while they’re paying up to $400 a month for their healthcare,” Cannon says.
Andrés is not just any prominent restaurateur. He serves as co-chair of President Joe Biden’s Council on Sports, Fitness, & Nutrition. World Central Kitchen, the chef’s disaster relief fund, has donated hundreds of millions of meals to people suffering from hunger during the pandemic, earthquake victims, Ukrainians during the Russian invasion, and displaced Gazans. Today, three House members nominated Andrés and World Central Kitchen for the Nobel Peace Prize.
