ILR Press
Behind the Kitchen Door
Key Metrics
- Saru Jayaraman
- ILR Press
- Paperback
- 9780801479519
- 8.96 X 6.12 X 0.52 inches
- 0.62 pounds
- Social Science > Sociology - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Sustainability is about contributing to a society that everybody benefits from, not just going organic because you don't want to die from cancer or have a difficult pregnancy. What is a sustainable restaurant? It's one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it.--from Behind the Kitchen DoorHow do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions--discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens--affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables? Saru Jayaraman, who launched the national restaurant workers' organization Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, sets out to answer these questions by following the lives of restaurant workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Detroit, and New Orleans.Blending personal narrative and investigative journalism, Jayaraman shows us that the quality of the food that arrives at our restaurant tables depends not only on the sourcing of the ingredients. Our meals benefit from the attention and skill of the people who chop, grill, saut�, and serve. Behind the Kitchen Door is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of dining out. Jayaraman focuses on the stories of individuals, like Daniel, who grew up on a farm in Ecuador and sought to improve the conditions for employees at Del Posto; the treatment of workers behind the scenes belied the high-toned Slow Food ethic on display in the front of the house.Increasingly, Americans are choosing to dine at restaurants that offer organic, fair-trade, and free-range ingredients for reasons of both health and ethics. Yet few of these diners are aware of the working conditions at the restaurants themselves. But whether you eat haute cuisine or fast food, the well-being of restaurant workers is a pressing concern, affecting our health and safety, local economies, and the life of our communities. Highlighting the roles of the 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring their passion, tenacity, and vision to the American dining experience, Jayaraman sets out a bold agenda to raise the living standards of the nation's second-largest private sector workforce--and ensure that dining out is a positive experience on both sides of the kitchen door.
Author Bio
As the President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley, Saru has spent the last 20 years organizing and advocating for raising wages and working conditions for restaurant and other service workers. Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
She was listed in CNN’s “Top10 Visionary Women” and recognized as a Champion of Change by the White House in 2014, a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2015, and the San Francisco Chronicle ‘Visionary of the Year’ in 2019. Saru authored Behind the Kitchen Door (Cornell University Press, 2013), a national bestseller, Forked: A New Standard for American Dining (Oxford University Press, 2016), and most recently Bite Back: People Taking on Corporate Food and Winning (UC Press, 2020), and has appeared on MSNBC, HBO, PBS, CBS, and CNN.
She attended the Golden Globes in January 2018 with Amy Poehler as part of the Times Up action to address sexual harassment.
Source: One Fair Wage
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