It was an emotional scene at the end of Lee Enterprise’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday. There stood the young and very nervous Erica Douglas telling Lee directors and executives how her father, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch retiree, died a few months ago after Lee cut off his health care benefits.

In Philadelphia and a half-dozen other big cities, low-wage dishwashers, cooks and other “back of the house” restaurant staff are learning the skills they need to move up front as higher-paid servers, hosts and bartenders. They’re also learning how to fight exploitation in an industry with below-minimum wages, few if any benefits and only a tiny sliver of workers with a union voice. Recently, the people training them became members of the Philadelphia Newspaper Guild.