NEW YORK The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, or ROC-NY, an employee-advocacy group and union proponent, said Wednesday it plans to release next week a study that highlights racial and gender discrimination at more than 180 of this city’s fine-dining restaurants.
Called “The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation & Inequality in the New York City Restaurant Industry,” the study contains data derived from two years of research in which pairs of subjects of different races with equal qualifications visited restaurants testing for preferential treatment. While few details of the study are available, including what restaurants were visited, ROC said that workers of color received job offers only 54 percent of the time that white workers did.
ROC officials said that the report also “shows that despite the economic crisis, the restaurant industry continues to prosper; however, many qualified employees have yet to realize those benefits based on the discriminatory practices in hiring and promotions within the industry.”
The report is scheduled to be released March 31 at a media event at Tom Colicchio’s Craftsteak restaurant in New York.
Even with only sketchy details available, the study already is angering industry members.
Rick Sampson, president and chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association, called the report “ludicrous."
"This industry is the largest employer of minority groups in the nation,” he said. “Where the hell do they come off? And to say the industry continues to prosper in this economic crisis? This industry has taken one hell of a hit because of the economy.”
According to the National Restaurant Association, eating-and-drinking places employ more minority managers than any other industry. Fifty-seven percent of the industry’s first-line supervisors and managers were women in 2007, the latest year for which data is available, the NRA said. In addition, 16 percent of first-line supervisors and managers were of Hispanic origin in 2007, and 14 percent were African American.
Sampson said that he questioned “the accuracy of the report because [ROC-NY] did its own research instead of hiring a reputable research company.”
ROC-NY says its goal is to bring justice to the city’s restaurant workplaces. The group has previously organized pickets outside of New York eateries that allegedly mistreated their employees.
ROC also has a presence in Miami, Chicago, Detroit, and Portland, Maine, and Washington, D.C.
Contact Elissa Elan at [email protected].