It’s a big decline from labor democracy to labor autocracy, but Saru Jayaraman of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United has pulled it off: ROC United is trying to force its founding “chapter,” ROC-New York, to accept a takeover.
The national outfit’s weapons of choice: bullying tactics, threats of litigation and an aggressive p.r. campaign.
The national group, with a multimillion-dollar annual budget and presence in two dozen cities, stands accused of trying to “annihilate” the scrappy, legally independent New York-based outfit that gave ROC its name.
“ROC-New York was born out of the ashes of 9/11,” as a 2004 NPR piece put it — designed to help displaced restaurant workers who survived the terrorist attacks.
But ROC-NY’s creators — the hotel and restaurant employees union and the two people it picked to run it — soon realized “what ROC really could be was a place to begin to organize the 99 percent of the industry that doesn’t have a union,” as co-founder Jayaraman put it in that NPR piece.
ROC-NY, with a board elected by the restaurant worker-members of the group, grew in the following decade, backed by union and foundation money and known for raucous protests at target restaurants.
Then Jayaraman and her co-founder left ROC-NY to launch ROC United, which was to incubate ROC chapters across the country that could one day stand alone as legally independent groups like ROC-NY.
But a funny thing happened on the way to local control. Jayaraman became a liberal star, with appearances on Bill Maher’s show and MSNBC, a book tour featuring tales of “exploited” restaurant workers and a visit to the White House to strategize on election-year minimum-wage battles.
The nonprofit ROC United even put out a job listing for someone to “routinely update and monitor co-director’s personal Web site, Facebook and Twitter account.”
Suddenly, letting local worker-activists pick their own leaders and set their own agenda lost its luster. This sudden, 180-degree turn to centralized control would even make Vladimir Putin blush.
Adding urgency to the centralization drive was the recent revelation that ROC United, in applying for a $275,000 grant in 2009, had submitted to the US Labor Department a letter from the IRS conferring tax-exempt status to ROC-NY.
ROC United didn’t then have that status, but it wanted that grant. Now, speaking with one voice was not just a communications strategy; being one legal entity might head off some very awkward inquiries.
But the members of ROC-NY are having none of it.
They and their supporters went public last month, saying that ROC United has threatened to sue them over use of the ROC name; that ROC United “demanded that we sign an agreement that would have required us to violate NY state laws” (the group hasn’t specified what laws), and that ROC United “made false statements” about a supposed merger.
Plus, Vice magazine says “ROC members” told it, “Accusations of Jayaraman’s megalomania are largely true.” (Jayaraman declined comment to Vice.)
ROC United’s bullying sounds like the kinds of accusations ROC makes routinely against restaurants. The national group better watch out, lest ROC-NY show up at United’s offices with the giant inflatable cockroach the activists like to bring to targeted restaurants at dinnertime.
A Google search of “Restaurant Opportunities Center” and “World Trade Center” pulls up more than 100,000 hits. The oft-repeated ROC-NY creation story has been priceless inoculation whenever someone protests the abusive tactics of any ROC outfit.
But now, ROC’s original leaders have turned their bullying and shakedowns upon their erstwhile labor allies.
One of Jayaraman’s aides recently e-mailed a statement to a news outlet magnanimously saying of ROC-NY, “We wish them well as they continue to go about their work.” She then twisted the knife: “They just won’t be called ROC any longer.”
Meet the new labor boss; same as the old labor boss. It’s a painful lesson of whose interests win out when the desires of labor leaders diverge from the interests of workers.
The New York group better hire a good lawyer. The struggling labor movement is hungry, and ROC-NY is on the menu.
Mike Paranzino is communications director for ROC Exposed, which is supported by restaurants and others concerned about ROC’s campaigns against America’s restaurants.