Opening Reception Photo Exhibit – ROC presents “107 stories: through restaurant workers eyes”
Saturday, February 11, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm, 2012
The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), launched by former World Trade Center
restaurant workers, presents a traveling exhibition of photographs – 107 Stories:Through Restaurant Workers’ Eyes. The Exhibition On view from February 11 – March 4, 2012 is scheduled to coincide with ROC’s 2/13 Annual National Day of Action to draw attention to the shockingly low federal minimum wage for tipped workers of $2.13.
On September 11, 2001, 73 workers from Windows on the World lost their lives. Survivors banded together to start the Restaurant Opportunities Center, now a national organization of restaurant workers seeking improved wages and working conditions. ROC will hold an opening reception for an exhibition of restaurant workers’ photographs in the Partnership Gallery of the Queens Museum of Art.
The theme of the exhibition is 107 stories: through restaurant workers’ eyes signifying both the fact that Windows on the World was located on the107th story of Tower Two at the World Trade Center, as well as the 107 stories of restaurant workers featured, offering a snapshot of the restaurant worker movement born from the tragedy. Today, ROC has nine locations and a combined membership of nearly 9000 workers. ROC’s 15 research reports on the industry, based on almost 5000 surveys of restaurant workers, indicate that this large and growing industry offers largely poverty wages for restaurant workers, and that the median wage has stagnated below $9 in part due to the fact that the minimum wage for tipped workers of $2.13 has not increased in over 20 years. ROC holds a National Day of Action every year on 2/13 to draw attention to the need to raise this abysmally low sub-minimum wage.
This exhibition was organized with Esther Cohen, ROC’s Cultural Consultant and founder of the unseenamerica project, and made possible with support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
ABOUT THE RESTAURANT OPPORTUNITIES CENTERS UNITED:
Founded after September 11th, 2001 by restaurant workers displaced from the World Trade Center, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) seeks to improve wages and working conditions for the nation’s low-wage restaurant workforce. ROC-United is the only national restaurant workers’ organization in the United States. Despite having more than 10 million restaurant workers and an economic impact of $1.7 billion annually, the restaurant industry is less than 1% unionized nationwide. Until ROC-United’s growth and development, the lack of organization left millions of restaurant workers vulnerable to abuse and exploitation around the country. Through participatory research and policy work, employer engagement, workplace justice campaigns, membership and leadership development, and more, ROC-United has become a powerful national vehicle for restaurant workers to lift their collective voice on issues affecting all low-wage workers, including the minimum wage, paid sick days, compliance with basic employment standards, and lack of health care. For more information about ROC-United, please visit www.rocunited.org.