The second employer, owner of restaurants “B” and “C” accepted
observations on the explicit condition that evidence would not be
gathered that could be used to gain compensation for musculoskeletal
disorders among the personnel. Restaurants B and C are
full-service “family” restaurants employing primarily female food
servers; staff are unionized. Participants were recruited in these
restaurants via a poster and each one who volunteered was interviewed
for an hour before observations began. A total of one male
and eight female food servers were observed, for a total of 33.75 h,
between November 2005 and January 2006. Observed staff were
between 20 and 43 years old (average ¼ 34.1y) and had seniority
from two to 22 years (average ¼ 14.3y) in the given restaurant.
Observations started when the food server began work and ended
at the close of the work shift and were followed by another interview
to confirm or extend what had been observed. Preliminary
observations lasted 16 h and then some tasks done frequently were
chosen for systematic observations. Participants were also filmed as
they transported dishes between the customer and the kitchen, so
that the transport techniques and numbers of items carried with
each hand could be observed. However, researchers were not
allowed to film customers. In Restaurants B and C, the number of
steps taken was counted with a pedometer.