Saru Jayaraman

Sarumathi (Saru) Jayaraman (born 1976) is an Indian American attorney, author, and activist from Los Angeles, California. She is an advocate for restaurant workers in the Bay Area and co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

Born in 1976, Jayaraman was raised in a primarily Chicano neighborhood in Whittier, California. Her parents emigrated from India to the United States when her father was seeking work as a software engineer. They settled in the Los Angeles area, but Jayaraman's father lost his job when she was a teenager. She was made aware of her class and race at a young age. Her family frequently endured racial slurs and insults. One incident from her childhood occurred when many mechanics refused to service her family's car when it broke down while they were road tripping across Utah.

Jayaraman was accepted to Harvard at the age of sixteen, but her parents wanted her to stay close to home. Sixteen-year-old Jayaraman attended UCLA instead, where she earned her B.A. in International Development Studies and Political Science and graduated summa cum laude in 1995. She continued her education at Yale Law School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2000, Jayaraman was admitted to the State Bars in California and New York. During her time at Yale, Jayaraman studied under MacArthur Foundation Fellowship winner, Jennifer Gordon. Jayaraman was hired at Gordon's organization, the Workplace Project, where she dealt with training and organizing mistreated Latino immigrant workers to become their own advocates in instances of labor abuse.

After September 11, 2001, thousands of workers from the World Trade Center were left jobless. The restaurant at the top of the World Trade was named Windows on the World. Jayaraman worked in partnership with Fekkak Mamdouh, the former chief server of Windows, to represent the displaced workers. The organization Jayaraman and Mamdouh founded together was named the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York. Although it was originally established to help those affected by 9/11, the ROC evolved and became an organizing center for all immigrant restaurant workers in New York. Jayaraman headed the expansion effort and became the co-founder and director of Restaurant Opportunities Center United in 2007. ROC United, still headed by Jayaraman and Mamdouh, currently has over 18,000 members across 15 states. The organization deals with workplace justice campaigns, establishing living wages, and protecting workers rights. Jayaraman has been a key player in major advancements for low wage workers across the country. ROC United has won back more than $10 million for its members, and is continuing to fight through the ONE FAIR WAGE Campaign. There are two federal minimum wages in the United States: $7.25 for untipped workers, and $2.13 for tipped workers. Jayaraman spearheads the fair wage campaign which seeks to eliminate this two tier system, and has already done so in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Nevada, Montana, Minnesota and Alaska. ROC United was also instrumental in the passing of Washington's Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act, which assures that all workers can begin accumulating sick leave after one day on the job.

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