ROC-United

New Campaign Campaigns

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  IHOP & Applebee's: Provide Paid Sick Days!

  People at Applebee's deserve paid sick days, especially with the rapid spreading of the coronavirus. The parent company is one the largest in the restaurant industry, employing tens of thousands of people with locations all over America and abroad. A significant percentage of their restaurants are franchised with different policies and rules for each store. Corporate stepping in and requiring paid sick days at all franchised & corporate-owned locations is the quickest and most effective way to protect their employees and be a leader in helping curb the spread of the virus.

  5,290 of 6,000 Signatures

  Created by ROC United
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  Denny's: Provide Paid Sick Days

  People who work at Denny's deserve paid sick days, especially with the rapid spreading of the coronavirus. Denny's disproportionately serves the elderly population, meaning if their workforce contracts the coronavirus, the company has a higher likelihood of spreading the virus to those with weakened immune systems. This is a public health issue! Denny's do your part and follow Olive Garden's lead in providing paid sick days to your employees.

  2,452 of 3,000 Signatures

  Created by ROC United
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  Kim Bartmann: Pay Us What You Owe Us

  On Monday, March 16th, in response to the spread of COVID-19, Kim Bartmann closed the seven restaurants she owns in the Twin Cities, laying off all workers. On March 19th, we, the employees of the Bartmann group, were notified that our checks for the week prior to this closure, wages we had already earned, would not be available. Furthermore, a time and date when these checks would be made available was not given. We deserve our earned wages, especially in a time when so many of us are unable to work, and are struggling to make ends meet. We, the employees of Barbette, Pat’s Tap, Red Stag Supperclub, Tiny Diner, Book Club, Trapeze and Gigi’s Cafe, demand that Kim Bartmann and the Bartmann Group pay us our earned wages. As a result of not making payroll, Kim Bartmann is withholding both our hourly wages and our tips from last week's pay period, this is theft and we are demanding that Kim Bartmann turn over these wages. For those of us who have had checks bounce from previous pay periods, we demand that Kim Bartmann make these wages available immediately. Under Minnesota Statutes § 181.13, we are entitled to receive all of our final wages within 24 hours of this demand. Failure to provide final wages within 24 hours of this demand may result in a penalty of up to 15 days of additional wages. In her email, Kim Bartmann strongly urged all of us to apply for unemployment, which most of us have now done. But, unemployment is not a substitute for stolen wages and tips AND many immigrant workers may be ineligible for unemployment benefits. In order to ensure that we and our communities can pay for food, medical needs and other basic necessities, we are calling on the State of Minnesota to enact a policy for 15 days of Emergency Paid Time Off paid for by employers and provided to all workers, no exceptions, who have to miss work (including retroactively covering days that have already been lost) due to the coronavirus pandemic for any reason, be it for a temporary job shut down, personally getting sick, caring for kids when schools shut down, or any other related reason. The 15 days should be in addition to whatever benefits workers already have in their workplace. To avoid impacting small businesses, we are calling on the state to implement a separate tax on the largest businesses in the state including Amazon, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Target, Ecolab and others, and small to medium sized businesses can apply for a tax credit equal to 100% of the paid sick leave benefit they have paid out. If workers have to miss more than 15 days for any reason related to the crisis, they should be able to access unemployment insurance benefits immediately without counting the benefit against the employer's experience rating, and with a moratorium on employer challenges during the pandemic. Finally, we remind the Bartmann Group that it is against federal law to retaliate against an employee for making a discrimination or wage-related complaint. This includes discharging, penalizing, disciplining or in any other manner discriminating against workers for this activity. 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3). Most of us, as bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, and servers in the industry, live from paycheck to paycheck. These paychecks are for hours ALREADY worked during a time that should have been considered hazardous to our health, exposing us to large amounts of people, and we deserve to be paid. We should not have to choose between paying for essential food, rent and medical supplies and compromising social solidarity (social distancing) or exposing ourselves to further risks.

  2,967 of 3,000 Signatures

  Created by Restaurant Opportunities Center of MN ROCMN
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  Caribou Coffee Corporation Provide Emergency Paid Leave

  We as workers, especially immuno-compromised and vulnerable workers, are being forced to risk potential exposure to and spread of the Coronavirus while CEO John Butcher can continue working remotely. We should not have to choose between paying for essential food, rent and medical supplies and compromising social solidarity (a.k.a. social distancing) or exposing ourselves to further risks.

  2,033 of 3,000 Signatures

  Created by Restaurant Opportunities Center of MN ROCMN
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  Chili's: Provide Paid Sick Days!

  People who work at Chili's deserve paid sick days, especially with the rapid spreading of the coronavirus. As a large chain restaurant, Chili's unfortunately has a troubled history of public health issues, having been sued by customers for salmonella, food-poisoning, among other health-related lawsuits. This is an opportunity for Chili's to finally be on the right side of history by leading the industry along with Olive Garden on public health issues by providing paid sick days to their employees.

  1,126 of 2,000 Signatures

  Created by ROC United
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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.

  3,374 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.

  3,848 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

  64 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!

  86 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 Restaurant Opportunities Center of MN ROCMN