NY RESTAURANTS BREAK LABOR LAWS
By Jose Acosta
Voices That Must Be Heard
El Diario / La Prensa
6 April 2006. Spanish Language.
It is not always an accident for people to get sick after eating in a restaurant. According to a study, “Dining Out, Dining Healthy,” conducted by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), there is a connection between public health and work conditions in city restaurants.
Released on April 3 by the faculty of Public Health at Hunter College, the study said that owners of restaurants violate basic legal requirements: by not paying minimum wage, over time or training employees properly.
“These restaurants create a work atmosphere where the employees are forced to carry out duties they are not trained in, work while ill or hurt. This is taking a serious risk for the public health of consumers".
Of the restaurants that violate labor laws, 41 percent of workers interviewed said they frequently had to perform several tasks at a time without proper training, and 41 to 45 percent said they handled food improperly or have served spoiled food to clients.
Saru Jayaraman, co-director of Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, said that while most New Yorkers have a favorite restaurant, "but they also have had that experience of becoming ill after eating in New York restaurants."
"The new study shows that this is not an accident, that restaurants with repeated labor violations put their clients at risk. When the owners of a restaurants treat their workers well, everybody wins,” said Jayaraman.
Flavio Sanchez, who has worked in the restaurant industry for 15 years, told of one occasion while working for "an expensive" restaurant, when he called in sick, "but the owner threatened that if I did not come in I would be fired."
"I felt very ill, but I had to go to work and handle food. This could have made the clients ill," Sanchez said. "If the owner of a restaurant does not care about the health of his employees, he does not care about the health of his clients either."
The study was based on 880 interviews with restaurant workers in New York City between, June 2003 and February 2005.
