When you negotiate a contract as a restaurant critic, a major factor is your expense account. Given the places they’ve reviewed, it seems clear to me that Addison either negotiated a much bigger dollar amount or had some provision like right of first refusal that allows him to review all the expensive places.
Escárcega reviewed NoMad, Nightshade, Knife Pleat, and Onda.
Addison reviewed Simone, Tesse, Alta Adams, APL, Hayato, Ronan, Inn Ann, Alameda Supper Club, Dear John’s, Spago, Auburn, da Michele, Élephante, Bon Temps, Angler, République, Somni, Shin Sushi, Pasjoli, M. Georgina, Bar Restaurant, and Phenakite.
Right, tell me they have the same job. Sure they do.
If Escárcega was maternity leave for three months, then the amount of reviews and other pieces she did were on a par with Addison.
“The company denies the discrimination claims that Patricia Escárcega has alleged in social media posts. For the employees, including Ms. Escárcega, who are represented by the Guild, the company and the Guild agreed on a pay scale which was approved as part of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), 388 to 3, in October 2019. Her pay is based on the framework in the CBA that was agreed upon and ratified by an overwhelming majority of the bargaining unit. The company has invested millions of dollars in improving salaries for the staff as part of the CBA.
The Media Guild of the West and the company agreed on a wage scale based on job classification and years of experience in the media industry. Prior to finalizing the wage scale, the company and the Guild allowed time for bargaining unit newsroom employees to challenge job classifications or experience ratings. While several individuals made such challenges, Ms. Escárcega did not do so. Once those challenges were resolved, the Guild and the company agreed in the CBA that initial placement on the wage scale of an individual such as Ms. Escárcega “shall not be subject to grievance and arbitration.”
Ms. Escárcega nevertheless filed a grievance through the union challenging her pay, which is based on her placement on the wage scale. She performs the same job duties today as when she was hired. Ms. Escárcega’s pay differs from that of the colleague to whom she is comparing herself because he has significantly more experience than her as a critic and has won one of the most significant awards in food journalism. Experience is a bona fide factor justifying different pay amounts for employees under California’s Equal Pay Act.
Ms. Escárcega’s compensation is well above the scale for her job classification and experience.
The company has implemented many processes to address fairness and equity in pay. We take seriously our commitment to building a strong culture among our employees, one that values diversity, promotes inclusion and cultivates fairness.”
Unless, as she pointed out, she wasn’t made aware of her lower classification to challenge and renegotiate— as she stated, management told her she was his equal…which seems very plausible given what we know about la times.
I’m not sure what protocol was used (or was supposed to be used) to disseminate that information and if that responsibility also fell on the Guild. The fact that other employees were able to mount a challenge may indicate such information was indeed distributed at some point.
If legal action is taken, I assume it should be fairly easy to show if such information was (or was not) appropriately distributed…
I’m sure this will play out in the media or courts in the next few months. But in the meantime, this PR hit that LAtimes and it’s food section still reeling from the Meehan fiasco is just absolutely brutal. So many major food media supporting her ( Ruth reichl, Padma Lakshmi, Helen rosner, all the critic contemporaries) For a company and section that’s not doing great, this can’t be good for bottom line and advertisers.
Being a nationally-known, award-winning critic gives Addison more power to negotiate salary and perks than the other 99% of food writers out there. He would surely not have taken the job if his contract didn’t guarantee that he could keep up with the high end of LA restaurants. He probably has a travel budget, too, so he can have perspective, and keep up his national reputation so he’s in good shape to get a similar deal at his next job.
When the Times hired Escárcega she had about as much experience as I do. She wrote reviews for the Phoenix New Times free weekly for two or three years. As a former reviewer for that chain, I can tell you the pay was low and the expense account was tight. And she did food reporting, not restaurant reviews, for the Phoenix daily.
“Seniority” is more of a union concept, that you should get paid more just for sticking around.
I’m not missing your point, you’re moving the goalposts.
Anyway, you’re wrong about Bill’s contract particulars.
And as a former editor at New Times/Voice Media, I can tell you that just because you were told that “the pay was low and the expense account was tight” doesn’t mean that was true for everybody.
Patricia did both reporting and reviews in Phoenix. And what she made there has no bearing on her salary here, both ethically and under California law.
This seems to be a discussion about who is getting paid what and why . With various folks giving their input and challenging speculative statements. Isn’t the point of the forum to discuss these things? I don’t understand why so much of this conversation is being flagged.
I’ve known a few other New Times restaurant critics, both staff and freelance, in SF and a couple of other places. The pay was low, and the expense accounts were tight. I had a lot of fights with my editor about my expenses and ended up paying a high percentage out of my own pocket Maybe in NY or LA they had bigger budgets.
I can’t find any reviews by Escárcega on azcentral.com, only 50-odd food reporting items. What she made there is relevant only to the extent it limited her experience. Did she review any of Phoenix’s most expensive restaurants? Did they pay for her to travel?
How do you imagine Califonria labor law enters into this?
Fair enough and @robert flag this whenever you feel like it but even this last bit of the exchange qualifies as meta and should be flagged for removal no? For the record, my response was about certain meta comments staying visible on the thread and others being flagged/deleted. Those have since been flagged.
This legislation is about salary history, not about offering different salaries based on merit and/or experience.
This bill would prohibit an employer from relying on the salary history information of an applicant for employment as a factor in determining whether to offer an applicant employment or what salary to offer an applicant. The bill also would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information about an applicant for employment and would require an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant for employment.
What’s relevant here is how much experience Escárcega accumulated in her four years in Phoenix. How much she was paid is irrelevant.
AB 168 modified California Labor Code section 432.3, which is about salary histories. It says nothing about experience. AB 2282, passed the next year, explicitly allows employers to set wage rates based on a “bona fide factor other than race or ethnicity, such as education, training, or experience.”
In Escárcega’s case, her ethnicity and sex were positive factors that helped differentiate her from many other critics with similar (or much greater) experience, just as they were for Soleil Ho in SF.
