LIFE
GETTING ORGANIZED
Meghesh Pansasri, center, with his employees at Nani's Kitchen. From left, Andrea DePasquale, Cole Roemer, Johanna Teissonniere, and Bri Hargrove. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE
LOVE THY LABOR Nani’s Kitchen workers unionized with the blessing of their boss. Why aren’t more restaurants union shops? It’s complicated. BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
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bout a month ago, workers at Nani’s Kitchen, an Indian restaurant at the Mercantile on Main food court collection of eateries in the Sibley’s building, did something remarkable: they voted to unionize. Even more extraordinary, perhaps, was that their boss, the owner Meghesh Pansasri, encouraged them to do it. Upon conceiving of Nani’s, Pansasri says, his first call was to the A.F.L.C.I.O. 68 CITY JUNE 2021
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“I was like, ‘Hey I’m opening a restaurant, what do you guys want me to do?’” says Pansasri, who is also a labor scholar. “Ultimately, all I did was stay out of the way.” Nani’s five workers are now represented by Workers United, a national union with roots in Rochester’s garment industry. They’re currently in the process of drawing up a contract for negotiation and for Pansasri to sign.
The situation at Nani’s is an anomaly. In Rochester, only one other food and drink establishment, SPoT Coffee on East Avenue, is a union shop. But Pansasri and Workers United hope Nani’s will inspire an expansion of organized labor in food services in the region. The movement can almost only go up. Across the country, just 1.2 percent of the estimated 11.9 million people working in restaurants and food
services belong to a union, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, making the industry one of the least unionized of any employment sector. It might seem counterintuitive that so few workers in an industry notorious for its instability, poor scheduling, low benefits and pay, and abuse from superiors and customers, turn to unions for help. But Gary Bonadonna explains that organizing restaurant employees is
