I am struggling to teach my 20-year-old that M-O-M does not spell ATM. She needs to get a job, and while she's been cut off from all but the essentials (the girl's gotta eat) and her bank account is overdrawn, she's dragging her feet on the work front.

She's a foodservice veteran, and a quick-thinking, calm and honest presence in the often chaotic culture of restaurants. She acknowledges that she could walk into most any restaurant and have a job by the end of the day. So what gives?

What gives is, she doesn't like foodservice. Where some folks find the ever-changing demands of a restaurant energizing, she gets drained. Even the immediate gratification of cash in hand at the end of the shift isn't enough to lure her back. And she's in plenty of good company: According to the National Restaurant Association, as of July the industry had added a net 1.3 million jobs in 2021, but employment counts were down as much as 55% from pre-pandemic levels for cafeterias and buffets, down 24% for bars and taverns, and down 4% at QSRs and fast-casual establishments.

New research by Black Box Intelligence tells restaurant owners why. Almost half of non-working restaurant veterans said they hadn't returned because of emotional abuse handed out by managers, 15% because they'd been sexually harassed by staff and another 15% said they'd been sexually harassed by customers. Pay is up significantly, as much as 10% year-over-year in limited-service establishments. But increased pay doesn't tip the scales for a lot of these folks, who said they don't like the scheduling demands, they have problems securing child care, and generally are looking for work that doesn't take such a toll on their mental and physical health.

Why do meat processors care? Because they've been dealing with a labor shortage for decades, and increased pay hasn't solved it. And the problem can't be blamed on the generous (and ending) pandemic unemployment benefits, because labor shortages and turnover in the meat industry has been endemic for a long time.

With the consolidation and automation of meat processing, the industry as a whole has come to largely rely on workers who don't have other employment options. They aren't college-educated and they're not artisans. Most are immigrants, perhaps with language and education deficits that render them unsuitable for a job in retail, say, or in an office. Since meat plants have relocated to rural areas and small towns from larger cities, there are simply fewer other employers nearby. Processors are hiring prisoners and ex-cons, and increasingly are looking to use temporary foreign workers on H-2B visas to plug the holes.

Surveys of working conditions in meat plants have elicited many of the same kinds of complaints that restaurateurs are hearing these days. They include poor treatment by supervisors and managers, sexual and racist harassment, punishing schedules, lack of child care and promotional opportunities, and just simply lack of a decent work environment. It wasn't always this way: Meat-cutters used to be prized for their skills. Some of these guys would wield those knives for 30, 40 years — like the waiters at our favorite Chicago steakhouse who have worked there for decades and came back to work just as soon as dining rooms re-opened. The service they provide is, of course, impeccable.

The meat industry is not going to return to the artisan butcher model in any wholesale way. It can't. But it can, to paraphrase David Bowie circa 1971, turn to face itself. It's not about pay, although that's part of it. It's providing work with meaning and is a source of pride. It's making employees feel like they are valued. It is taking a demanding and difficult job and not adding "demeaning" to the description.

The labor shortage is all the talk in restaurant circles, but so are the reasons that shortage exists. Restaurant owners and managers are talking about the culture they create for their employees and how it can be improved — how their workers, down to the bussers, can be made to feel like they are part of something bigger. Who knows; my daughter may yet go back to foodservice (I don't think these retail positions she's applying for are going to fill the bill).

But meat companies still are relying on employees who have few, and now dwindling, alternatives in parts of the country that have been hard-hit economically by the pandemic. Continuing to fish in ever-shallower waters for a warm body to plug into the line is easier than looking in the mirror, and doing the work of creating a culture from the corner office to the evisceration line that values each person's contributions.

Am I wrong? Are there companies out there who aren't scrambling for hires, whose line workers know that they are an important part of the mission to feed the world? Tell me more, please, in the comments below or to my email at lkeefe@meatingplace.com.

'So I turned myself to face me'

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