Email cover letter, resume and salary range to the Co-Directors of the Tipped Workers Resource Center – Sheila Maddali sheila@rocunited.org and Evelyn Rangel-Medina evelyn@rocunited.org

PLEASE NOTE: This position can be based in NY, DC, or PA

Founded initially after September 11th, 2001, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers-United (ROC-United) has grown into a national organization with more than 18,000 low-wage restaurant worker members in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Orleans, Pennsylvania, Seattle, and Washington, DC. In each region, we are organizing restaurant workers, employers, and consumers to win ‘One Fair Wage’ (OFW) legislation and ballot measures that will raise wages for restaurant workers and eliminate the lower wage for tipped workers.

Over the last 15 years, we have organized thousands of workers to win $10 million in misappropriated tips and wages and discrimination payments for low-wage workers, and significant policy changes in high-profile fine dining restaurant companies covering thousands of workers. We have partnered with 200 responsible restaurant owners to promote the ‘high road’ to profitability, and trained more than 5,000 restaurant workers to advance to livable wage jobs within the industry. We have also published thirty ground-breaking reports on the restaurant industry, obtaining significant media coverage, played an instrumental role in winning a statewide minimum wage increase and paid sick days for tipped workers, and initiated other policy campaigns at the local, state, and federal level. We own and operate restaurants called COLORS that serve as the home base for our workforce-development training and membership programs in New York and Detroit, and will be expanding COLORS to Washington DC and Oakland. ROC-United recently launched a Tipped Worker Legal Resource Center (TWRC), which is a legal organizing, worker advocacy, and research center designed to advance, support and foster local and statewide worker justice + OFW organizing, electoral and legislative campaigns throughout the country.

ROC-United is seeking a highly skilled, experienced, and motivated legal organizer, who will work at the heart of a workers’ rights movement to increase wages and improve working conditions for restaurant workers nationally. The Legal Organizer of the TWRC will work with the Co-Directors of the Tipped Worker Resource Center to help operate our Sanctuary Restaurants Campaign and to help build strategic policy campaigns and litigation around our OFW Campaign.

This position is geared at a entry-level professional with some organizing and legal experience. The Legal Organizer will report directly to the TWRC Co-Directors.

Core Responsibilities:

Sanctuary Restaurants Campaign:

Assist in the development, maintaining and distribution of Know Your Rights materials for national webinars with restaurant employers and workers;

Respond to general inquires for Sanctuary Restaurant Project (SRP) and help advance the campaign’s reach throughout the country;

Support local affiliates by providing rapid response capacity and related organizing support; and

Field rapid response texts and designate to appropriate responder.

Legal Department:

Maintain legal databases to advance ROC-United’s OFW Campaign;

Recruit legal allies to be part of ROC’s legal referral network; and

Conduct and set-up intakes system for current and future ROC worker members.

Tipped Worker Resource Center:

Support organizing, research and legislative efforts as necessary. This may include conducting research, providing technical assistance to allies moving OFW campaigns throughout the country; and

Provide support to local affiliates in advancing local and statewide campaigns.

Qualifications

• Mission Orientation: Personal and professional alignment with ROC United’s mission and vision, with a strong analysis of and commitment to racial, social, and economic justice and familiarity with the progressive field. Knowledge of low-wage worker organizing preferred.
• Organizing Experience: At least two years of organizing and member engagement experience.
• Legal Knowledge: Basic knowledge of immigration and labor law, legal research skills and experience creating and providing know your rights information.
• Detail-oriented Project Management Skills: Strong organizational skills, including the ability to manage multiple priorities and drive projects from ideas to planning to action. Meticulousness with details and facts. Must be highly collaborative, iterative and focused on rapid and repeatable delivery.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an emphasis on persuasive writing.
• Education: Paralegal Certification highly preferred.
• Spanish fluency strongly preferred.
• Restaurant work experience a plus.