BreadBros
17th January 2007, 08:41
I found this article on New York Times online while perusing the net. I thought it was rather interesting as it talks about some of the type of racism that goes on in the restaurant industry that often goes un-noticed and is difficult to reign in when it occurs in "fine dining establishments". I've posted it here because it also involved organizing by a group of restaurant workers, not into a traditional union but definitely a worker's action I would suppose.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/dining/1...serland&emc=rss (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/dining/17prom.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=36d91502886aefdf&ex=1326690000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)
Some excerpts for thy viewing pleasure (go read it in full though):
According to the lawsuit, dining room workers at Daniel have been denied promotion because they were Latino or Bangladeshi. The employees also say that Mr. Boulud and other managers yelled racial slurs. At one point, they say, Spanish was banned among employees; only English and French were allowed. Those are examples, they say, of how the working culture at Daniel favors white Europeans at the expense of other groups.
To that end, he filed a suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan accusing the group leading the protest, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, or ROC, of defamation, nuisance and harassment, and of causing damage to his business.
The organization has shown up outside Daniel and a couple of his public events more than a dozen times, most recently Thursday night in observance of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. Managers have escorted customers into the restaurant with the sort of care that might be afforded women wearing furs near an animal-rights convention, and waiters have walked outside and staged impromptu counterdemonstrations, matching the protesters chant for chant.
The Restaurant Opportunities Center, a nonprofit group, sprang to life as a way to help Windows on the World restaurant workers who had a difficult time getting fair treatment after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since then the group has dedicated itself to helping immigrants who face discrimination and poor working conditions in New York’s restaurant business. Along with running Colors, a cooperative restaurant on Lafayette Street in Manhattan, it produces reports on working conditions and helped put together a restaurant training manual distributed by the city.
But it also uses the threat of lawsuits and bad publicity to make social change, a tactic it hopes to employ on top restaurants elsewhere in the country.
“If people aren’t going to see the value of change, they will see the consequences of not changing,” said Saru Jayaraman, the Yale-educated lawyer who is the group’s executive director.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/dining/1...serland&emc=rss (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/dining/17prom.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=36d91502886aefdf&ex=1326690000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)
Some excerpts for thy viewing pleasure (go read it in full though):
According to the lawsuit, dining room workers at Daniel have been denied promotion because they were Latino or Bangladeshi. The employees also say that Mr. Boulud and other managers yelled racial slurs. At one point, they say, Spanish was banned among employees; only English and French were allowed. Those are examples, they say, of how the working culture at Daniel favors white Europeans at the expense of other groups.
To that end, he filed a suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan accusing the group leading the protest, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, or ROC, of defamation, nuisance and harassment, and of causing damage to his business.
The organization has shown up outside Daniel and a couple of his public events more than a dozen times, most recently Thursday night in observance of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. Managers have escorted customers into the restaurant with the sort of care that might be afforded women wearing furs near an animal-rights convention, and waiters have walked outside and staged impromptu counterdemonstrations, matching the protesters chant for chant.
The Restaurant Opportunities Center, a nonprofit group, sprang to life as a way to help Windows on the World restaurant workers who had a difficult time getting fair treatment after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since then the group has dedicated itself to helping immigrants who face discrimination and poor working conditions in New York’s restaurant business. Along with running Colors, a cooperative restaurant on Lafayette Street in Manhattan, it produces reports on working conditions and helped put together a restaurant training manual distributed by the city.
But it also uses the threat of lawsuits and bad publicity to make social change, a tactic it hopes to employ on top restaurants elsewhere in the country.
“If people aren’t going to see the value of change, they will see the consequences of not changing,” said Saru Jayaraman, the Yale-educated lawyer who is the group’s executive director.