A dubious grant for a dubious outfit: James Varney

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The Restaurant Opportunities Center's New Orleans branch recently got $200,000 in public money to talk with restaurant owners about "creating healthy menu options" for their Asian-American and Pacific Islander workers. (David Grunfeld / The Times-Picayune)
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on June 16, 2013 at 8:49 AM, updated June 17, 2013 at 7:07 AM

There has been much talk and congressional attention lately over the IRS gumming up the works of tax-exempt applications from conservative groups. Perhaps more of that should be directed toward the groups that are already exempt.

One that might deserve some scrutiny is the Restaurant Opportunity Center, a hard-left union front that models itself as a warm-hearted community group and is recognized, despite some of its overtly political work, as a 501c(3) non-profit by the IRS.

ROC has been quite successful at this game. In the last few months, it's had a seat at a private White House strategy meeting on boosting the minimum wage, and it scored $200,000 in public money to push "healthy menu options" for Pacific Island and Asian-American restaurant workers in New Orleans.

The acronym gumbo behind the $200,000 grant is proof, as if any were needed, that government spends large sums on arcane things.  The dollar trail began with $3 million in Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funds that were then dished out to 15 different groups. ROC New Orleans got its slice through a STRIVE - "Strategies to Research and Implement the Vision of Health Equity" -- program, in which the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) made the sub-grant to ROC New Orleans.

It's not clear just how many Asian-American and Pacific Islander restaurant workers there are in New Orleans, and hardly any program reaches every one of its target audience anyway. Yet, extrapolating from census data and the like, ROC Exposed, a Washington group questioning ROC's tax-exempt status and activities, puts the figure at 1,500.

That figure isn't precise, and it's possible the actual number is a bit higher given New Orleans' large Vietnamese population. Regardless, this is a nice pot of money being spent on a dubious proposition affecting a sliver of folks.

If, in fact, that's what it's spent on. Not long after landing the cash, ROC New Orleans advertised for a "High Road Coordinator" -- someone who will "engage restaurant owners who employ Asian American workers to 1) sign a pledge to provide healthier food for the workers 'family meal' or staff meal, and 2) join RAISE."

Another acronym! In this case, RAISE (Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment) is a national association that lobbies for "living wages" and the like. In other words, it acts just like a union.

The strong bond between ROC and unions has been clear for years. A local hotel workers union in New York City birthed ROC after 9/11 as a group devoted to helping former workers at the Windows on the World restaurant that sat atop the southern World Trade Center tower.

ROC-NY came under the leadership of Saru Jayaraman, an activist with impeccable left-wing credentials (Berkeley, Yale Law, fawning New York Times profile) and set about "organizing workers to take collective action in defense of their rights," according to Dollars & Sense, "The Magazine of Economic Justice."

ROC also formed a restaurant, COLORS, that trumpeted itself as a model co-operative that would be owned by the workers. The restaurant has been plagued with problems, however, including a lawsuit by the original workers who accused Jayaraman and other ROC bigwigs of treating them like proletarian scum (the lawsuit was dismissed on technical grounds, though the court did not dispute the facts).

Here in New Orleans, ROC has been a low-key player thus far. It proclaimed victory last year following a legal settlement with Tony Moran's Restaurant, but critics look askance at its intentions. ROC United's history suggests it's more concerned about labor agitation than healthy menu options for restaurant workers.

"They should not interfere with other businesses here in New Orleans," The Pelican Institute's Kevin Kane wrote in New Orleans City Business. "We already have an industry characterized by innovation, service, diversity, value and opportunity. Owners, employees and customers benefit from this flexibility and we should be wary of union advocates who seek to restrict it."

APIAHF officials insist they have made it clear none of their money is to be spent on such overtly political work, but money is fungible. The same is true for ROC overall, which is why ROC Exposed has filed an IRS complaint against the group's charitable status.

"We can all go to Congress and talk to lawmakers, but ROC is specifically set up as a charity," ROC Exposed spokesman Mike Paranzino said. "They lobby for specific legislation and go to Congress seeking cosponsors of bills -- the definition of lobbying -- and they don't disclose it."

James Varney can be reached at