Pa. politicians hope to help food service workers get through coronavirus pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many local businesses - especially bars and restaurants.

Some restaurants have been able to get by as takeout only, but in many cases that still means servers, bussers and hosts have lost their jobs.

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For nearly a month now, those people who work in the food service industry have been trying to figure out how they are going to pay their bills and today, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapira faced some of those concerns head on.

"It's an unfair system and it's something structurally that has to change,” he said.

Shapiro joined politicians from across the country talking about One Fair Wage, a program aimed at helping service workers and the companies that hire them.

Chrissy McCleary is a bartender in Bridgeville, and like others in the restaurant business she makes $2.83 an hour plus tips - which has made it quite difficult for her to get a fair and accurate unemployment check.

“It’s definitely scary considering I rely on it, you know what I mean?” McCleary said.

The night she found out the restaurants were closing, she filed for unemployment, but in that month she’s only gotten one $300 check.

“I’ve already made one car payment and I have to make another one, and my car payment is half my rent every month, so when I don’t have any money coming in it’s very difficult to do all that,” McCleary said.

Shapiro said he understands the frustrations and concerns and said the state is doing what it can right now to help.

"As part of the Pennsylvania care package, that’s the initiative that we launched with Pennsylvania’s banks, the banks who sign up have to agree not to do a foreclosure on a home or an auto repo. So, check and see if your bank is participating,” he said.

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