ROC Exposed: Union Front Group Promotes Phony "Diners' Guide" in Los Angeles

New Watchdog Organization Questions Restaurant Opportunities Center's attacks on LA Restaurants, Following Similarly Questionable Releases in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by ROC Exposed:

The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles (ROC-LA) recently released in Los Angeles its annual "Diners' Guide," which purports to rank restaurants based on their labor practices instead of their food quality. The report is highly critical of a number of restaurants with locations in Los Angeles, but given ROC's history of harassing restaurants and mistreating employees, as well as its own failed "labor-friendly" restaurant, Los Angeles diners should take this "guide" with a grain of salt—if not the whole shaker.

ROC's Los Angeles release follows on the heels of similar "Diners' Guide" releases in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Both of these earlier guides suffered from the same problems as this Los Angeles guide.

A more detailed description of the flaws in ROC's "guide" is available here.

ROC—which was originally named the Restaurant Organizing Center—is a labor union front group disguised as a restaurant industry employment center. ROC's co-founder describes its goal as organizing "the 99 percent of the [restaurant] industry that doesn't have a union."

ROC's Diners' Guide judges restaurants on their pay practices, but the organization hypocritically uses unpaid workers to collect the data for its reports. ROC has also been sued by its own members for "intentionally failing to pay…a minimum wage." This hypocrisy has previously been highlighted with a full-page ad in USA Today.

"ROC is the last organization that should be advising Los Angeles restaurants on their labor practices," said Alison Harden, Spokeswoman for ROC Exposed. "Their half-baked Diners' Guide is just another example of the lengths this front group will go in its quest to unionize the restaurant industry."

ROC regularly issues flawed, agenda-driven reports, files ridiculous lawsuits, and leads protests that harm many of the restaurant employees they claim to represent, all in an effort to attack and harass non-unionized restaurants. ROC is currently part of an investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives for its "history of intimidation towards opponents and management problems."

Harden continued: "Given ROC's checkered past, its hidden agendas, and its illegitimate tactics that can harm the very same employees it claims to protect, ROC has no credibility to speak on behalf of restaurant industry employees. This so-called 'Diners' Guide' is a sham and should be treated as such by consumers and the media."

ROC Exposed is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants and consumers dedicated to educating the public about ROC's real agenda.

SOURCE ROC Exposed