Restaurant Opportunities Centers United
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21th April 2016 - Washington, D.C. - U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez participates in a press conference with congressional leaders to discuss the importance of raising the federal minimum wage and urging Congress to pass the Murray-Scott Raise the Wage legislation. Jessica Wynter Martin, Worker (Restaurant Opportunities Center United)
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| Abbreviation | ROC |
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| Formation | 2004 |
| Founder | Saru Jayaraman, Fekkak Mamdouh |
| Type | Not-for-profit |
| Purpose | To improve wages and working conditions for the nation's low wage restaurant workforce |
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Region
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United States |
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Membership (2013)
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13000 |
The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC) is a not-for-profit organization and worker center with affiliates in a number of cities across the United States. Its mission is to improve wages and working conditions for the nation's low wage restaurant workforce. Its tactics and strategy have drawn fire from business groups and restaurant industry lobbyists.
As of 2013, ROC claimed to represent 13,000 restaurant workers, 100 employers and 2,000 consumer members in 32 cities across the United States.
The group was founded with funding from multiple foundations with a stated goal to “organize all unorganized restaurant workers in New York City.” ROC-NY was founded by immigration attorney Saru Jayaraman and Windows on the World waiter Fekkak Mamdouh and other restaurant workers who survived the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 to provide support for the displaced workers, including undocumented immigrants. These workers had worked in restaurants in the WTC, including in the Windows on the World restaurant located on its top floors.
Jayaraman is author of Behind the Kitchen Door (2013), a book that follows the lives of restaurant workers in eight American cities, seeking to call attention to their low wages, along with unfair labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchen practices.
Mamdouh is the co-author, with Rinku Sen, of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Era of Global Immigration (2008), a book that argues for a free flow of international labor to match globalization’s free flow of capital.
The March 2013 announcement by Richard L. Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, that organized labor would work more closely groups focusing on aid immigrant workers is one factor in the decision by business groups to target ROC.
ROC supports the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013.
ROC is a target of the National Restaurant Association and allied lobbyists like Richard Berman.
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Wikipedia