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Since the restaurant industry does not pay its servers the minimum wage, servers are forced to rely on tips as their wage. Their employer gives them as little as $2.13 an hour (the federal tipped minimum wage since 1991), and then takes out taxes. This leaves them with $0 paychecks, obviously insufficient to pay rent or put food on the table for their families. The goal of the One Fair Wage Campaign is to get rid of the restaurant industry’s two-tiered wage system
Restaurant Opportunities Center United
With over 14 million employees nationwide, the restaurant industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing private sector employers in the nation. Unfortunately, despite the growth and profitability of the industry, restaurant jobs provide largely low wages and little access to benefits. The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) engages people who work in the industry, employers and consumers to ensure all people who work in restaurants can achieve financial independence and improve their quality of life
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras
A coalition of religious, labor, environmental, community and women’s groups in Mexico, the United States and Canada striving, in a coordinated and multi-disciplinary way, for a better quality of life, sustainable development, social justice, human rights and environmental stability. Their actions are carried out wherever companies and multinational corporations violate workers’ rights or impact negatively on the right of communities to protect and safeguard their environment, particularly in the maquiladoras in Mexico.
An information hub designed to grow the fair trade movement and create a market that values the people who make the food we eat and the goods we use.
A membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world.
IWJ works to educate, organize and mobilize the religious community in the U.S. on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits and working conditions for workers, especially low-wage workers.
Political Economy Research Institute at University of Massachusetts Amherst
The institute is committed to addressing basic issues of human and ecological well-being through research written for the general public, policy makers and academic audiences.
Articles/Papers
Hardship on Mexico’s farms, a bounty for U.S. tables
By Richard Marosi and Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 7, 2014
A four-part story on the laborers at Mexico’s mega-farms who endure harsh conditions and exploitation while supplying produce for American consumers.
Buying Overseas Clothing, U.S. Flouts Its Own Advice
By Ian Urbina, New York Times, Dec. 22, 2013
In some countries, suppliers to the American government show a pattern of unsafe or abusive conditions.
Clothing Brands Sidestep Blame for Safety Lapses
By Jim Yardley, New York Times, Dec. 30, 2013
Months after the collapse of the RanaPlaza complex in Bangladesh exposed abuses in the garment industry, there is no consensus on what responsibility global chains should bear for reform and compensation.
“Target as bad as Wal-Mart? You Decide”
Kari Lyndersen, AlterNet, May 1, 2006
When it comes to wages, working conditions and effect on communities, the two stores are eerily similar.
“Rerum Novarum: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Capital and Labor”
Pope Leo XIII, The Vatican
Although the Encyclical follows the lines of the traditional teaching concerning the rights and duties of property and the relations of employer and employee, it applies the old doctrines specifically to modern conditions, set forth with sufficient detail to reach the principal problems and relations of industrial and social life.
“Laborem Exercens: On Human Work”
Pope John Paul II, The Vatican
“Laborem Exercens” is a sustained reflection on the meaning of human work, which John Paul considers to be “a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question…”
Periodicals/Newsletters
National Farm Worker Ministry e-Newsletter