Despite the restaurant industry's importance to this city, the restaurant workforce union density is still at 1% . Created in April 2002 ROC-NY was established to provide support to the 99% of New York's restaurant workforce that has no type of institutional support. ROC-NY works to build a base of power among non-union restaurant workers and win justice for those who work at exploitative and abusive workplaces.
We do so through a combination of protests, litigation, and clergy and student actions. In the past 6 years, we have won 9 campaigns against abusive restaurants, totaling more than $1,000,000 in discrimination payments and unpaid wages, and winning non-monetary changes in the workplace such as vacations, sick days, break times, promotions, grievance procedures, to name a few.