Restaurant Labor Leader Responds to Paula Deen Controversy: 
For Restaurant Workers Discrimination Is As American As Apple Pie
with
Saru Jayaraman, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Restaurant 
Opportunities Centers United, Director of the Food Labor Research Center at U.C. Berkeley, author Behind the Kitchen Door

Lisa Jackson who sued Paula Deen, said that her “lawsuit has never been about the "N-word,”  its purpose was “to address Deen’s patterns of disrespect and degradation of people that she deems to be inferior.”  The former manager at Deen’s restaurant Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House, sued Deen and her brother Bubba Hiers saying that the work environment was rife with discrimination, and she could no longer tolerate Deen’s abuse of power as an owner, nor Mr. Hier’s despicable behavior routinely.  Unfortunately, the revelations about  Deen's treatment of workers of color is neither new or unique in the restaurant industry. More than a third of all workers of color, who were surveyed reported that they experienced discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, including verbal abuse, being passed over  a promotion, racial epithets, and more. This treatment has real impact for the lives of workers and their families - because they have been discriminated against, workers of color are segregated into the industry's lowest-paying positions and segments (e.g. fast food rather than fine dining). Saru Jayaraman takes us Behind The Kitchen Door to expose the extensive discrimination and hardships of restaurant workers. 

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesRestaurantWorkersDiscriminationIsAsAmericanAsApplePie   play stream 

http://archive.org/download/BuildingBridgesRestaurantWorkersDiscriminationIsAsAmericanAsApplePie/sarurocntl.mp3   download

Read More...

Restaurant Workers ROC the Nation
With
Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC)

plus

Tribeca’s Amish Market Accused Of Wage Theft in NYC

play or download


click below for more information or to post to this blog




Restaurant Workers ROC the Nation
With
Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC)

Saru Jayaraman details the prevalence in the restaurant industry of wage theft, sub-minimum wages and widespread discrimination as well as ROCs innovative fightback which involved direct action, lawsuits, legislation, industry research and opening their own NYC cooperative restaurant “Colors”. Responding to demands from around the nation ROC has expanded operations to 8 cities nationwide.
***************
Tribeca’s Amish Market Accused Of Wage Theft in NYC

Wage theft is epidemic throughout New York and the nation.The NYS Department of Labor announced a $1.5 million enforcement action against the Amish Market, Park Place store among a number of others over stolen wages. To protect themselves from this and other abuses, the Amish Market’s low wage workers have been trying to unionize, but have been met with firings, harassment and intimidation from the store's management. Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers who the workers have been seeking to unite with rallied in protest and support of the workers, calling for a boycott of the store.

Read More...

WBAI Radio's Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report
Monday, October 27, 2008, 7 – 8 PM EST, over 99.5 FM ****************************************
District Court Finally Serves Justice to Saigon Grill Restaurant
Delivery Workers
with
Saigon Grill Workers,
Josephine Lee, Coordinator, Justice Will Be Served Campaign
Representative of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association

Indigenous Columbian Leader In US To Testify Against Uribe
Government Policies
with
Rafael Coicué who was the indigenous Governor of Corinto in
Northern Cauca and a representative of the Association of
Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, Colombia (ACIN)

Post-Mortem: 55 Years After the Execution of His Co-Defendants,
Convicted “Atomic Spy” Morton Sobell Confesses – But to What?
with
Robert Meerpool, Youngest Son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
and Executive Director of the Rosenberg fund for Children

Play or download



click below for more information or to post to this blog

District Court Finally Serves Justice to Saigon Grill Restaurant
Delivery Workers
with
Saigon Grill Workers,
Josephine Lee, Coordinator, Justice Will Be Served Campaign
Representative of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association

A victory for all NYC delivery workers occurred when 36 employees of the
Saigon Grill Restaurants, after more than one and a half years of battling
with its owners Simon and Michelle Nget, were awarded $4.6 million for
federal and state labor law violations. The 36 worked at Saigon Grill
restaurants until they were fired in March 2007, in retaliation for
organizing a union and planning to bring a lawsuit against the owners. ****************************************
Indigenous Columbian Leader In US To Testify Against Uribe
Government Policies
with
Rafael Coicué who was the indigenous Governor of Corinto in
Northern Cauca and a representative of the Association of
Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, Colombia (ACIN)

The mass upheaval of the indigenous people of Cauca has been met
with military force resulting in 3 deaths and 122 wounded. Coicué recently
testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the
OAS about the militarization of indigenous lands, the US-Columbia Free
Trade Agreement, the failure of President Uribe’s administration to honor
accords with the indigenous communities and the current repression of
Indigenous protests in Cauca.
****************************************
Post-Mortem: 55 Years After the Execution of His Co-Defendants,
Convicted “Atomic Spy” Morton Sobell Confesses – But to What?
with
Robert Meerpool, Youngest Son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
and Executive Director of the Rosenberg fund for Children

Morton Sobell, now 91 years old and the only living defendant in the
Rosenberg “Atomic Spy” case , 55 years after his co-defendants Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing
prison, admitted transferring U.S. military information to the Soviets. But,
what did Sobell actually confess to and what are the essential lessons of
the “atomic spy” trial that keeps this case alive?

Read More...