Category Archives: Working Conditions

If You’re Going Out To Eat Check Out “Behind The Kitchen Door”

Today’s guest post comes from Jon Gelman of New Jersey.

For many celebrating the holiday season is inggo out to eat for an enjoyable experience. Unknown to many restaurant patrons are the problems of restaurant workers and include:  low wages, occupational stress and lack of medical benefits that requires restaurant workers to go to work sick.

Behind The Kitchen Door exposes the working conditions in the restaurant industry.

 “How 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 a national restaurant workers organization after 9/11, sets out to answer these questions by following the lives of ten restaurant workers in cities across the country – New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Detroit, and New Orleans. Blending personal and investigative journalism, Jayaraman shows us that the quality of the food that arrives at our restaurant tables is not just a product of raw ingredients: it’s the product of the hands that chop, grill, sauté, and serve it, and the bodies to whom those hands belong.

“Behind the Kitchen Door “ is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of eating out. What’s at stake when we choose a restaurant is not only our own health or “foodie” experience, but the health and well-being of the second-largest private sector workforce—the lives of 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring passion, tenacity, and important insight into the American dining experience.

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