Do You Give As Much Thought to Restaurant Workers as You Do to Your Organic Chicken?

[Omaha Steve]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/14104-do-you-give-as-much-thought-to-restaurant-workers-as-you-do-to-your-organic-chicken


Monday, 28 January 2013 09:31 By Amy B Dean, Truthout | Interview





ROC-United launches national organizing campaign in Midtown, January 29, 2012. (Photo: Sam Grace Lewis)

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An interview with organizer Saru Jayaraman of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United

There's little question that the vast majority of restaurant workers in the United States could use a union. On the whole, their jobs offer low pay and few benefits and employees have little job security. Yet they are also a very difficult group to organize: turnover in the industry is high, the workforce is largely an immigrant one, and employers effectively use threats of deportation and other retaliation against those who speak up.

Over the past decade, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers, now a national organization known as ROC-United, has taken on these challenges. While not a union, ROC-United has brought together 10,000 restaurant workers into an advocacy organization devoted to improving wages and working conditions. In recent years, ROC has expanded beyond New York City and launched affiliates in New Orleans, Miami, Michigan, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington DC. The organization has deployed a diverse arsenal of tactics - community and workplace mobilization, lawsuits against discrimination and wage theft, high-profile research and reports on the industry, and partnerships with "high road" restaurant owners - to advance the interests of low-wage workers who have been largely beyond the reach of the traditional labor movement.

Recently, I spoke with ROC-United's co-founder and co-director, Saru Jayaraman, about how it has been able to use its status as an advocacy organization to develop fresh approaches to defending workers' rights and building alliances in the community. Next month will see the release of Jayaraman's first book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which challenges foodies who demand organic, fair-trade and free-range ingredients in their food to pay just as much attention to the people who do the majority of the work in the restaurants we patronize.

I started by asking Jayaraman about her background and about how ROC got started.

FULL story at link.


Amy B Dean

Amy B. Dean is a fellow at the Century Foundation and the principal of ABD Ventures, a firm that seeks to increase the organizational effectiveness of social change organizations. She co-authored, with David Reynolds, "A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement." Dean has worked for more than 20 years at the cross-section between labor and community-based organizations. You can follow Amy on Twitter at @amybdean, or she can be reached via the web site,www.abdventures.com.
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[whathehell]

1. Yes, especially since I used to be one. n/t

[undeterred]

2. I've been a restaurant worker but not an organic chicken.

[whathehell]

5. Really?

and here I thought that was just another rung on the career ladder.

[Sherman A1]

3. K&R

[we can do it]

4. Even more! Love and take good care of my restaurant buddies, they take good care of me.