ROC-United

New Campaign Campaigns

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  Severance for laid-off Tazza D'Oro staff

  My name is Adelaide Smith and I am a former barista and coffee equipment technician at Enrico’s Tazza D’Oro. I started working as a barista at the Highland Park location in April 2017 and have been with the company as it expanded from two cafes, to four cafes and a training lab. When I first started, it was clear that the management structure was somewhat disorganized and not totally functional, but as the new cafes opened, the situation became much worse. Stores have gone months at a time with no manager, so managing responsibilities were piled onto assistant manager and barista workloads. This resulted in day to day operations becoming increasingly stressful for baristas. When that trickled into bad experiences for customers, upper management would show up to hassle the staff about their performance and general attitude, leaving no opportunities for productive discourse. In the context of this managerial chaos, myself and other women consistently received lower scores on job evaluations compared to our few male coworkers, despite working for a company owned by a progressive woman. As a direct result of this disparity, men became eligible for higher raises then women at the barista level. This is a great example of how a well-intentioned feminist can perpetuate gender-based wage disparities in the workplace by failing to implement systems and structures that insure just and equitable working conditions. I don’t believe the owner wants gender-based discrimination to be happening anywhere, but the current structure of her own business makes the issue difficult to address. The owner, Amy Enrico, has a history of retaliating against workers who speak out. In one such instance, where two baristas were fired after bringing up concerns at a staff meeting, the National Labor Relations Board was prepared to back the workers in a federal suit, though Tazza and the employees settled out of court. Throughout the various locations staff have been intimidated and harassed by management in retaliation to collective concerns and issues that baristas had no power over. As the equipment tech and part of the coffee quality control team, I would look into any situations where coffee quality was below our standards. On three specific occasions at the Millvale cafe, management came down on the entire barista staff accusing them of making bad coffee, when the problem was out of their control. I pinpointed the equipment issues that compromised our standards and made the issues known to management, but management continued to hassle the baristas until I was able to fix the issues and show that with properly functioning machinery, the coffee was not just adequate, but better than the other locations. Workers at the Millvale location have been targeted and blamed for the poor performance of the store despite their earnest attempts to make that cafe thrive. When management got onto them about evening shifts taking too long, staff worked off the clock to make sure the cafe was stocked and clean for the morning shift. In April of this year, the Millvale staff was told their jobs had been eliminated and the store was closed with only a day’s notice. Later that day on their social media accounts, Tazza D’Oro claimed they would just be closing the Millvale cafe for only a week and reopening the following Tuesday. After the fired workers organized a picket, the plans to reopen the store were postponed. One of the workers was able to pick up part-time work at another location, while the other four are trying to make it by on unemployment. I know these kinds of issues are commonplace in the restaurant industry, but they don’t have to be! We’re calling on Tazza D’Oro to do the right thing and sit down with us, develop a plan to restructure the company, and pay severance to the laid-off Millvale workers.

  3,341 of 4,000 Signatures

  Created by Adelaide Smith
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  Protect restaurant workers from tip theft.

  When a customer pays the tip with a credit card, the money doesn’t always go to the server. Many restaurants allow customers to pay the bill and the tip with their credit card instead of cash. Credit card companies charge separate fees to process both of these transactions. Because the tip has to be processed through the restaurant, the restaurant can legally take a percentage of each tip to pay the transaction fee. In short, restaurants are taking the tip you gave to the employee to pay a business expense. In many states, servers are only guaranteed $2.13 per hour. The rest of our pay comes directly from guests in the form of the tip. This is an incredibly unstable way to make a living because it’s only social custom that obliges a patron to leave a tip. Regardless of how hard we work or how much the bill is, only the customer’s conscience determines how much we are paid. Meanwhile, if a guest refuses to pay the bill, they could be prosecuted. It is shameful that an industry that doesn’t have to pay its workers a living wage would also steal its workers’ hard-earned money.

  3,795 of 4,000 Signatures

  Created by Janice Shiffler
• Stand with Vermont's Restaurant Workers!

  Vermonters love to dine out, experience new things, and try new foods and flavors. So do the many tourists that visit our beautiful state each year. The restaurant culture and service industry isn’t going anywhere and neither are the amazing humans who work in and sustain it. Not only is it not going anywhere, it has been growing and expanding rapidly. The service industry has grown 80% since the 1990s, more than any other sector of our economy in America. Nationally, 1 out of every 2 people currently works or has worked in the service industry. Under current Vermont law, tipped workers bring home $5.39 an hour before tips. This leaves a large section of Vermont’s workforce - 12,300 people, nearly 80% of whom are women - vulnerable to inconsistent and unreliable pay, low wages, and harassment. This year, we're fighting to raise the standards for thousands of Vermont's tipped service workers and fight for One Fair Wage, improving the security of those who work in Vermont's profitable food service industry by raising wages across the board to at least $15 an hour before tips, phased in over several years. As someone who has worked in the industry for many years, I enjoy and take pride in this work. I also know firsthand the challenges that we face as a result of poverty wages. Elsewhere, others have also begun to recognize these challenges. Many states such as Minnesota, California, Washington, and Oregon have already agreed to One Fair Wage: a single minimum wage for all restaurant workers with tips as usual. Will you stand in support and solidarity with Vermont’s tipped workforce and let our legislators know that you support #OneFairWage? Let’s be on the right side of history together. Join me in signing today. Andy Sebranek Burlington, VT

  63 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Andy Sebranek
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  Give New Mexico Restaurant Workers a Paycheck

  The restaurant industry is one of New Mexico’s largest and fastest growing industries. Employing close to a half of a million people, our industry has statistically the lowest wages in the state. As someone who has worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years, I know how hard it is get by in this industry, and how helpful it will be if we pass one fair wage. According to New Mexico’s Department of Workforce Solutions – the median income earning of someone in our industry is around $20,000 a year. That needs to change. States like Nevada, Minnesota, California, Washington, Montana, Oregon, and even Alaska have laws that make sure everyone, including front-of-house staff, are paid at least the minimum wage by their employer. Every New Mexican deserves a paycheck. New Mexico legislature, be on the right side of history and pass one fair wage!

  84 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Irena Paz
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  Tipped Workers Need One Fair Wage in St. Paul

  As the cost of living continues to rise, one in four St. Paul workers currently makes less than $15/hr. The food-service industry is one of the top three employers of low wage workers in the metro area and many of them are tipped workers. We are the people that serve your food, mix your drinks, make your coffee, and clear your tables; we are the backbone of the restaurant industry and we deserve a living wage. Right now, the restaurant industry employs six out of ten of the lowest wage jobs in our state, meanwhile the restaurant and food-service industry continues to grow. We want to keep our industry strong and support the workers that make St. Paul a desirable place to work and dine. We deserve the full minimum wage and our tips! Fair wages not only prevent poverty and wage theft, they also help to protect workers from sexual harassment and discrimination: when workers are more dependent on tips, we're more vulnerable to the biases and, at times, predatory behaviors of customers. On a daily basis, workers in our industry are forced to weigh our dignity against our take-home pay as we face indecent behavior from customers and coworkers. A tip penalty makes this dynamic worse by forcing workers to depend more on tips and less on guaranteed wages for our income. The Minnesota Restaurant Association claims that raising the minimum wage would hurt our industry. That's not true! The restaurant industry is the fastest growing industry in the country and has grown amidst raises to the state-wide minimum wage. They say that workers would lose tips, but tipping is norm in the highest-wage food-service industries in the country. They want to take workers tips to subsidize the cost of running their businesses. We say no! We know that tipped workers, that ALL workers, need a $15 Minimum wage with #1FairWage. Tell the City Council: No carve-outs, No tip-penalty!

  785 of 800 Signatures

  Created by Eli Edleson-Stein
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  Stop Tip Theft: Our Tips Belong To Us!

  I am a server at Olive Garden and have been in the service industry for 35 years. For many of those years I made $2.15 per hour. I now make $2.83 per hour. Research suggests that servers and bartenders depend on our tip earnings to pay for essential expenses such as rent and utilities -- and from my experience, I know that is true. I am married 26 years now and like almost all tipped workers, I rely on my guests' tips to support my family. Meanwhile my employer, the Olive Garden, which is part of Darden Restaurants, a member of the National Restaurant Association and Fortune 500 company who's CEO Gene Lee makes 4.27 million per year, is pressuring the US Department of Labor to institute this proposed rule that would allow the company to take our tips and keep them for their own profit. Not only does Olive Garden and the National Restaurant Association think it's okay to pay us as little as $2.13 per hour, but they now also think it's okay to take our tips. But we are here to tell them it's not okay. We deserve fair wages. We deserve to keep our tips. And we deserve a Department of Labor that looks out for us as workers and does not give into the pressure of the National Restaurant Association and their millionaire members. If you agree, please sign this petition calling on the Department of Labor to say NO to tip theft and be sure that servers will get to keep our tips.

  114 of 200 Signatures

  Created by James Conway
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  Matchbox: Respect Your Workers Rights!

  We would like fellow restaurant professionals (front and back of house) regardless of nation of origin, status, race, gender, age, or identity to know that you are not alone. You deserve dignity and respect at work: the law is on your side. Stand together and make your voices heard. We stand with you. (Nos gustaría que los profesionales de los restaurantes (igual los de enfrente y los de la cocina) sin embargo de su nación de origen, estatus, raza, genero, edad o identidad que sepan: usted no está solo. Todos merecen dignidad y respeto en el trabajo: la ley está de su lado. Permanezcan unidos y levanten sus voces. Nosotros estamos unidos con ustedes.) The company has declined to hear us. Please read our testimonies, and sign and share our petition in support. Thank you. (La compañía se ha negado a escucharnos. Por favor lea nuestros testimonios, y firme y comparta nuestra petición en apoyo.) Testimonies (Testimonios) ---------------------------------------- Maria D. I worked for the company for two years as a busser. I was paid $5.00 per hour plus $15-$20 in tips. This was my compensation regardless of whether I worked half day or a full day. When I was four months pregnant I was asked to move heavy boxes. I spoke up to let them know that those boxes were too heavy for me that far along in my pregnancy. They responded forcing me to move them and by shortening my schedule to two hours a week. The entire time I worked there they never allowed me to have rest or food breaks. I was never granted a paid sick day. (Trabajé para la compañía durante dos años como busser. Me pagaron $5.00 por hora más $15- $20 en propinas por día. Esta fue mi compensación independientemente de si trabajé medio día o un día completo. Cuando tenía cuatro meses de embarazo, me pidieron que moviera unas cajas pesadas. Les hice saber que esas cajas eran demasiado pesadas para mí a esa altura de mi embarazo. Respondieron con obligarme a moverlas y cortaron mi horario a dos horas a la semana. Todo el tiempo que trabajé allí nunca me permitieron descanso ni tiempo de comer. Nunca me concedieron un día de enfermedad pagado.) ---------------------------------- Maria O. I experienced a lot of discrimination up to and including verbal and physical abuse. On one occasion, I was working on the line with one other coworker making pizzas. The chef joined us on the line to help us because it got busy all of the sudden. He put the pizza into the oven using the wooden pizza peel and proceeded to throw it at me. He was obviously upset, so I just moved into a corner and kept trying to work. He would refer to me as a useless. When I was pregnant and I asked for a day off they would give me an unpaid day off and then take an additional day off my schedule for the week. On another occasion I was reprimanded for something I hadn't done. Because I was pregnant my blood pressure got so high I ended up in the hospital. Not once during my entire pregnancy was I allowed a break to eat. I honestly believe that the company takes advantage of people's need to work and discriminates based on gender and nation of origin. I started earning $11.00 per hour. I worked there for six years and never saw a pay increase, nor had a paid sick day. (Experimenté mucha discriminación e incluso abuso verbal y físico. En una ocasión, estaba trabajando en la línea con otra compañera haciendo pizza y el chef ejecutivo se unió a nosotros porque se puso muy ocupado de repente. Despues de haber metido la pizza al horno él procedió a tirarme la tabla que se usa para meter la pizza al horno. Porque el estaba obviamente muy molesto yo solamente me mudé a una esquina y seguí intentando trabajar. Él rutinariamente se referiría a mí como una babosada. Cuando estaba embarazada, si pedía un día libre para una cita con el médico, me daban un día libre sin pagar. Luego tomarían un día adicional de mi horario para la semana. Lo que de hecho me dejó dos días sin trabajo y pago en una semana. En otra ocasión, fui reprendida por algo que no había hecho. Debido a que estaba embarazada, mi presión arterial se elevó tanto que terminé en el hospital. Ni una sola vez durante todo mi embarazo se me permitió tomarme un descanso. Sinceramente, creo que la empresa aprovecha la necesidad de las personas de trabajar y discrimina en función del género y la nación de origen. Empeze ganando $11.00. Trabajé allí durante seis años y nunca vi un aumento en salario, ni tuve un día de enfermedad pagado.) ------------------------------------------- Santos M. I suffer from a disease that occasionally makes my hands and feet swell and causes a lot of pain. They never understood that some days the pain and swelling was so great I could not walk or hold anything without excessive pain. Instead of allowing me the time to treat the swelling so I could work better, the chef would pressure me to work faster while insulting me for my symptoms. I worked there for five years. The last day I worked there was because the chef told me I was of no use to him because of my disease. He told me to go home and he never wanted to see me again. (Yo padezco de una enfermedad que ocasionalmente hincha las manos y los pies y causa mucho dolor. Nunca entendieron que algunos días la inflamación era tan grande que no podía caminar ni sostener nada sin un dolor excesivo. En lugar de darme el tiempo para tratar la inflamación para poder trabajar mejor, el chef me presionaría para que trabaje más rápido mientras me insultaba por mis síntomas. Trabajé allí cinco años. El último día que trabajé allí fue porque el chef me dijo que no le servía para nada debido a mi enfermedad. Me dijo que me fuera a casa y que nunca más me quería volver a ver.)

  4,970 of 5,000 Signatures

  Created by Felipe Martinez
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  Pay Us What We're Owed

  My name is Michele Lindor and I am a former manager for BG’s Cowboy’s Saloon in Syracuse, New York. My experience working for BG Cowboy’s Saloon was short-lived but definitely memory packed. I was asked to join the BG team in February 2017. After 2 months of serving, I was promoted to service manager and then quickly took on the responsibility of bar management as well. My hours were strenuous and never ending; I even have slept in the restaurant before because my commute was too long for me to leave and then turn back for my shift in less than 3 hours. I was constantly left to deal with things quite literally by myself and received little to no help from the other management staff; i.e. continually being left as the only manager within the building on weekend nights with minimal training as a manager and no support. Many of my coworkers also experienced terrible treatment by the management team that was let go in July. Turnover is high in the restaurant industry, due to low wages, lack of benefits and strenuous work. Our turnover rate at BG Cowboy’s Saloon was no exception, especially for front of the house employees, where turnover was frankly astronomical and embarrassing due to the sub-minimum hourly wage, poor working conditions and the reputation acquired by the owner’s failure to pay bills rent and possibly even taxes to the State of New York. With the potential closing looming over our heads, instead of taking the easier route of calling it quits, leaving my coworkers behind and moving onto a new workplace, I worked extra hard to ensure that not only I had a job, but that my staff did as well. We banded together and collectively worked together to try and better the entire restaurant. For the last month, I was ensured that the restaurant had a future for the coming holiday season, so when I received the message through text on the morning of Saturday September 23, 2017 that our restaurant was indefinitely closing its doors and our “help” that was flown in from Florida was heading straight back to South Beach, I was shocked and outraged. Not only were our jobs non-existent, but so were our paychecks. Our paychecks dated 09/04/2017-09/10/2017 had bounced and we never received payment from 09/11/2017-09/22/2017. I personally am owed $1889.70. Because of the sudden change, I as well as many of my staff have had to apply for unemployment to receive some sort of repayment for the loss of wages from BG’s. Personally because of this job, I have taken hits to my own bank account by paying out of my own pocket for groceries and supplies for the restaurant because things with vendors soured when the employer failed to pay bills. As a result of going above and beyond, I have been living paycheck to paycheck. When the first paycheck bounced, I was left with $49 in my account and have been forced to live on credit. I, as well as everyone else, has had to scramble to find employment elsewhere. 4 weeks have gone by and we are still not paid for our time on the clock. It is all too common for people in our industry to be taken advantage of and disrespected. My coworkers and I from BG Cowboy’s Saloon went above and beyond for our employer. We deserve to be paid for the work we performed and to be treated with respect. Please join me in asking Bobby Genovese, the millionaire who owns BG Cowboy’s Saloon and BG Capital Group, to do the right thing and pay us the money we are owed and enter a dialogue about how similar situations at his other establishments can be prevented. Thank you,

  4,583 of 5,000 Signatures

  Created by Jordan Romanus
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  Hey Darden, #BringBackAutograt

  "I served a party of 30 guests with another server. We waited on them during the dinner rush for over 2 hours. The whole party left a total of $13.” -Janine, Louisiana “I am an excellent, fast, and friendly server and I love my job but sometimes I get big parties who tell me that I did a great job but they only leave $20 on a $600 check. I have to tip out my partners based on my sales so after we split the tip we only make roughly $2 each when we waited on them our whole shift.” -Suzanne, New York “Without the gratuity added to parties I receive very low or no tips at all even though the parties would be there for hours. Quite a few times I have walked home with less than ten dollars in my pocket because of the loss of the autograt. This is just not right. It's disheartening.” -Lauren, PA --- Up until late 2013 we, the front of the house employees at Darden Restaurants, were able to add an automatic 18% gratuity onto the check(s) of parties of 8 or more. The auto-grat was included in large party checks for several reasons including, but not limited to: 1.Guests often do not tip when they are in large parties because they either forget to or assume the host will take care of it. 2. Servers of large parties usually have the rest of their section taken by someone else so they can focus on the party. 3. Darden mandates a tip-share policy with bussers and bartenders (who are also paid sub-minimum wages) and FOH staff get left with little to nothing even though we may work one party for an entire shift. Several wage workers have a stake in the tip on large parties which is why it makes sense to have an auto-gratuity to ensure that both guests and employees are well treated. A host of restaurants around the country provide their servers with autograt to make sure that their employees don’t leave their shifts with less than when they came in. So, why did Darden really get rid of autograt? Did Darden eliminate auto-grat to avoid extra payroll taxes? Therefore, we, the front of the house workers of Darden Restaurants, demand that Darden reinstate autograt.

  6,612 of 7,000 Signatures

  Created by Estelle Becker Costanzo
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  Olive Garden: Reinstate a pregnant employee who was unjustly terminated

  My name is Courtnee Dean. For the past 10 years, I have been a loyal employee of Olive Garden store 1370 in Bala Cynwyd, PA. I am also a mother, currently seven months pregnant with my second child. On October 1st, 2014, I was unfairly terminated from my employment at Darden Restaurants for a lost coupon. I offered to compensate for the coupon, but the manager, Lily, refused the money. Instead of following the customary procedure of writing me up or taking the money, she called corporate and had me terminated. Even after working at Darden for 10 years, not only was I treated as disposable but so was my growing family. That’s why I am demanding that Darden Restaurants make this right by: 1) restoring my employment, 2) fully compensate me for all the time I have missed from work as a result of this unjust termination, and 3) meet with me and members of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United to address my case and the issues that workers face from Darden management all over the country, like being discriminated against for being pregnant and being forced to work while sick. Please join me in asking Darden Restaurants, the largest full-service restaurant company in the world, to do the right thing so that I can support my family and prevent similar situations from happening to the rest of Darden’s employees.

  6,227 of 7,000 Signatures

  Created by Courtnee Dean