Food-industry labor activist speaks March 5

Saru Jayaraman, author of “Behind the Kitchen Door.”

The University of Illinois at Chicago presents Saru Jayaraman, author of “Behind the Kitchen Door” and director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, on “Sustainable Restaurants:  Labor Practices, Working Conditions and Wages in American Restaurants.”

WHEN:
March 5
Noon – 1 p.m.

WHERE:
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 S. Halsted St.
Residents’ Dining Hall

DETAILS:
Jayaraman, an activist and scholar, will discuss food-industry labor issues such as wage theft, paid sick days, and the connection between work conditions and food safety.

Jayaraman is co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United), a national organization of restaurant workers. With 10,000 members in 19 cities worldwide, the group has won campaigns for workplace justice, developed policy, partnered with responsible restaurants, and helped launch cooperatively-owned restaurants.

The story of how Jayaraman co-founded ROC-United in the wake of Sept. 11 was chronicled in the book “The Accidental American.” A graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Jayaraman has been the subject of profiles in the New York Times, Crain’s New York Business, and New York Magazine.

The event is part of Re-Thinking Soup, the museum’s regular monthly luncheon featuring speakers on food and social issues. This is the third annual lecture and event series presented by UIC Chancellor Paula Allen-Meares.

Admission is free. Soup will be served. For more information, call (312) 413-5353.