State Rep. Lin Bennett faced widespread criticism from the Charleston-area food-and-beverage community on Tuesday for statements made about restaurant workers in a 2013 radio segment posted to social media by her opponent.
Ed Sutton, a small-business owner and Democrat challenging Bennett, R-Charleston, for the District 114 seat, on Labor Day released the clip from Bennett’s radio show in conjunction with a campaign fundraiser. Sutton is asking supporters to donate $7.25, or the federal minimum wage, to signal their displeasure with Bennett saying of short-order cooks, “If that is your lifetime job, God help us.”
Bennett and her Right Wing Dixie Chicks co-host Colette Harrington were discussing fast-food workers’ fight for a living wage when Bennett made the comments now provoking controversy.
“If your lifetime goal is to get up every day and slap a burger on a bun and give it to someone, you have no life,” Bennett said. “You don’t ever deserve to make anything.”
Bennett, in a response to The Post and Courier, texted a statement accusing Sutton of “misleading neighbors with old radio clips” and reiterating her concerns about raising the minimum wage. She did not acknowledge a request for a follow-up phone interview.
“I know that money does not grow on trees and that doubling the minimum wage would be disastrous, especially during these challenging times,” Bennett wrote. “I also know that the overwhelming majority of minimum wage earners desire greater opportunities for themselves and their families.”
But local hospitality professionals, some of whom live in Bennett's district, which covers parts of West Ashley into Dorchester County, took offense at Bennett’s implication that their chosen career isn’t as honorable as others.
In a Tuesday morning Facebook post responding to the mounting backlash, Bennett wrote, “My record as State Representative has unequivocally been one of helping neighbors, including many in the F&B industry, achieve their goals and the American Dream.” She said she wouldn’t stoop to sowing hate.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s someone making a burger at Burger King or Oak Steakhouse,” said Megan Deschaine, president of Charleston's U.S. Bartenders' Guild chapter, characterizing the distinction as elitist. “The hospitality trade is very viable, and the industry has been critical to our local economy.”
Sutton rejected Bennett’s interpretation that his sharing the clip amounts to straying from the issues. He said respect for all workers is central to his platform, which calls for devoting more resources to low-income communities.
“Especially in this year, people are hurting big-time,” Sutton said, referring to the economic toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on the food-and-beverage sector. “(Bennett) has no problem looking down on people rather than fighting for their interests.”
According to Sutton, a friend of his campaign provided the audio file of the show, taped at the Ronald McDonald House on Dec. 12, 2013.
In the minutes leading up to the featured exchange, which was preceded by an ad for a private chef asking, “Why fight annoying waiters when the best of Charleston can come to you?,” Bennett and Harrington disagreed over whether McDonald’s customers should have to shoulder the cost of better employee compensation.
“Some people can’t get out of poverty,” Harrington said. “What would be so wrong with McDonald’s taking a little less?” (She quit questioning McDonald’s financial strategy when a 21-year-old producer reminded her that their host venue was funded in part by the fast food company.)
Deschaine said she hopes this latest social media flare-up will bring attention to hospitality workers’ persistent struggles to get by on minimum wage. “We still have to find way for people to pay their rent,” she said, citing a recent study showing minimum wage earners can’t afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S.
Approximately 40 percent of restaurant industry workers earn minimum wage, despite the rigors of commercial kitchens.
“To work in any kitchen is incredibly grueling,” Deschaine said. “You’re on your feet; it’s hot; you don’t have breaks or meals, and you’re on the other end of an angry customer or waiter who might be having a bad day. It’s a tough job.”
Both Deschaine and Sutton would like Bennett to apologize.
“Either she still holds those beliefs, or she thinks she’s above apologizing,” Sutton said. “Either way, it isn’t good.”
Although Deschaine said she’s seen more “pitchforks being raised” on social media by angry members of the food-and-beverage community than talk of political action, she didn’t think it was sufficient to just criticize Bennett online.
On Tuesday morning, she volunteered to make calls for Sutton’s campaign.