Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.): ‘ROC’s history … raises significant questions about why DOL decided to form an alliance with and provide federal funding to the organization.’ (EPA)
The House investigations panel has opened a probe into a controversial labor-activist group accused of harassing New York City eateries, The Post has learned.
The organization, the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), was formed after 9/11 to help displaced restaurant workers, including those from Windows of the World.
But Darrell Issa, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said ROC has been up to no good, and he is questioning why the group receives federal funding from the US Department of Labor.
ROC obtained a $275,000 federal grant in 2009.
Issa pointed out that the city Health Department has slapped ROC’s own restaurant, Colors in Greenwich Village, with numerous sanitary violations.
And the group itself has been accused of wage violations by its own workers, Issa said.
“ROC targets restaurants that it believes have subpar safety or workplace conditions and demands that the restaurant pay a monetary award. When a restaurant resists these demands, ROC organizes large protests outside the restaurant, harasses patrons who want to enter and eat in the restaurant and even places giant inflatable cockroaches outside of the restaurant,” Issa said in a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
Issa said ROC “repeatedly harassed” celebrity chef Mario Batali’s restaurant Del Posto and other eateries in the city — even noting that Batali filed for a restraining order against the group.
ROC’s tactics have won back-pay settlements for workers at other restaurants.
But Issa said ROC doesn’t even practice what it preaches.
He said city Health Department inspections showed ROC’s eatery Colors had a “troubling history of poor sanitation” over the past two years — including violations for the presence of mice, food surfaces not properly washed, and food not protected from “potential sources of contamination in storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.”
While ROC’s mission is to fight for improved wages and working conditions for restaurant workers, Issa told Solis the group and Colors have a “history of disputes over wages.”
Issa said several ROC members sued the organization because the group allegedly promised them an ownership stake in Colors if they contributed free labor. But the workers alleged ROC did not live up to the promise.
“ROC’s history of intimidation towards opponents and management problems with its own restaurant raises significant questions about why DOL decided to form an alliance with and provide federal funding to the organization,” Issa said.
ROC — a tax-exempt not-for-profit that has expanded to include locals in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston — declined to comment.