The service workers, and the service workers alone, have built what so many love about Subculture Group. Shouldn’t they make the decisions around here? Let’s be real: vaguely postured aesthetics can’t cover up the exploitation within the service industry. It is not the cookie-cutter establishment versus the hip counter-culture, especially not when assessing a multi-million dollar corporate enterprise. It is plainly worker versus bourgeois, and yes, at times, the petit-bourgeois as well.
Rodney Mayo became cemented and certified as the “Cool Guy” of downtown Clematis Street in 1987 by becoming an edgy punk-coded nightclub owner. Nearly forty years later and his name is associated with a swelling trademark deeply intertwined with South Florida’s rapidly gentrifying real estate trends, a past flirtation in West Palm politics, passion-project coated philanthropy via a canine non-profit, or a ticket to a discounted meal if you’re lucky. Among individuals, the name Rodney Mayo evokes entirely different qualities: drawn out or disadvantageous decision making, run down working conditions, or an entrepreneurial hippie staunchly committed to staying relevant.
The company is disjointed by locality and functionality, with over a dozen active locations spreading from Miami to West Palm, and a layered payroll system that leaves a majority of workers barred from direct deposit at worst and subject to inconsistent tip out practices at second worst. Recently, this payroll discrepancy between management and workers hit a devastating blow to the financial stability of many. One location experienced six consecutive pay periods where checks were delayed by one or more days. Three months of not just hiccups, but flash points of missed bills and empty bank accounts. This of course only impacted the non-salaried and non direct deposit eligible, who make up most of the broader Subculture workforce.
The response has been to downplay this with an air of nonchalance or some form of contained concern, “This type of thing happens. It’ll all shake out.” Because Rodney Mayo takes care of his people, right? At least he has with some of his people, in the past. Therein the complete desensitization around corporate malpractice is becoming more of a reality. Where workers become apathetic or fall back on the reassurances of familiarity despite livelihoods being on the line.
Discrepancies throughout the layers of management affecting the majority of the workers, who are the ones actually producing, can be written off for one reason or another. This is done to protect the entitlements to those responsible and surviving off the profits of the Subculture worker’s labor, i.e. the corporate executives and landlords. A tendency towards defeatism in handling issues within the folds of this cult-of-personality business model is establishing a more suppressed Subculture. A state of high stress, low support which is detrimental to every member of staff’s quality of life.
In terms of work-life balance, once attention is turned towards the health of Subculture Group service workers, serious oversights in stable access to care come to light. There is more than one anecdote of a full-time Subculture worker sacrificing the ~$200 deduction from each check for company provided medical insurance, only to receive in their moment of vulnerability a pricey medical bill due to a lapse in premium renewal by the company. Some workers qualify for the provided insurance but are unable to take the $400 required from an already existing monthly budget.
It is a stifling predicament to navigate safely when in a position of making minimum wage in an industry ripe with class power-imbalances and exploitative proclivities, for a company that is no stranger to engaging in nepotism based hiring practices, all while residing in a state where termination of employment is solely entrusted to the discretion of the bosses.
A sharp contradiction is expressed in the tethering of a ‘corporate culture’ to the intensely political ‘subculture’ of punk. It separates the bars, venues, etc from the original anti-capitalist, anti-white-supremacist, and broadly ‘anti-establishment’ elements of punk. Creating in their place a thin ‘life-style’ that satiates rich white audiences while avoiding any real political depth. At best, watering down a scene with posers, and at worst creating right wing hotbeds in and around Black and Brown communities. It took ‘real punks’, or at least youth with a firm grasp on the political reality at hand, to rally against and break up an established ‘nazi punk’ hangout that had developed like a cancer within Rodneys’ first spot, ‘Respectables Street.’
When posturing as a counterculture corporation there will exist an undeniable irony in so plainly participating in the labor exploitation of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants, transgender and queer folks, the formerly incarcerated, and individuals in active addiction recovery; nonetheless in service to a clientele of wealthy West Palm Beach honkies, PBSO stormtroopers, and a cohort of cybertruck drivers. Within the breadth of Subculture Group, a myriad of aesthetics trump concretely counter-cultural practice as the material needs of communities engaged in struggle are disregarded for more socially convenient positions.
The time is now to demand, as workers and community members, not only a cessation of unfair labor practices but the establishment of a workplace democracy that upholds the integrity of service to the integral service worker. In the grasp of our hands are the tools needed to rip off this thin posturing veil, and force genuine progressive change.
If you are a Subculture worker reading this, do not feel alone. There are many who can read the writing on the wall. People who can tell that this ship ain’t right, and know that with collective power, shared might and industry expertise, not only can Subculture be the kind of place that pays a living wage and provides adequate health coverage, it can also be a place where one is exceedingly proud to be a part of. The need has long since arisen to organize with your coworkers and formulate demands so that no struggle for improvement is fought in vain. Start talking about your bad experiences, your financial needs, your pay and healthcare, and most of all start pushing hard for a union! Don’t for even one second allow management to quiet our voices!
On the other hand, if you are able to make the journey to a Subculture spot, don’t be shy! Tell the workers that they deserve better pay, better benefits, and to work in a comfortable and supportive environment. Let folks know that workers united can never be divided, and that a unionized Subculture is worth fighting for!