Fekkak Mamdouh
Revson Fellow 2005-2006
Co-Founder and Assistant Director
Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York
Fekkak Mamdouh came to the United States from Morocco in 1988 at the age of 27. Although he received a degree in physics in Morocco, since his arrival in the States, Mamdouh has worked in the restaurant industry all over the City. He started as a busboy in Chez Matin in the East Village, worked later as a waiter in Madison Square Garden and at the Hudson River Club, and finally moved to Windows on the World when it reopened in 1996. In 1998, Mamdouh single-handedly organized a strike of the workers at Windows on the World due to worker mistreatment by one of the managers, who was finally fired. After September 11th, 2001, Mamdouh initially led search parties for the families of the 73 victims who lost their lives at Windows, and then later was hired by the union HERE Local 100 to staff a temporary operation known as the Immigrant Worker Assistance Alliance (IWAA) to provide relief services to his fellow displaced workers and to the families of his brothers and sisters who had lost their lives at Windows. When the IWAA shut down in February, Mamdouh was part of a team of four individuals that founded a new organization known as ROC-NY, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York. Now as Assistant Director at ROC-NY, Mamdouh has organized more than 1000 of his peers to fight for justice. In just three years, this group has already won six campaigns against abusive restaurant owners totaling more than $300,000 in backwages and discrimination payments for workers, was nstrumental in NY State’s Minimum Wage increase, and has published a widely-publicized report on the restaurant industry. Mamdouh was born in Casablanca, Morocco and received his degree from Hassan II University. During his Revson year, he plans to take courses in immigration and labor history, race, and public policy.
(The Revson Fellow’s biography that appears above was last updated in 2005. Revson Fellows may update their biographies on this site by sending email to: revson@columbia.edu)
The Revson year gave me a chance to see the parallels between the low-income communities I’ve worked in for so many years and a larger world in transition. It gave me an opportunity to explore what it means to work as an urban planner in regions in conflict. Through course work, discussions with faculty and students, directed reading, and the culmination of the year - a meeting with planners from the Balkans - I took a long journey that brought me back to where I started: housing can be a tool to stabilize an area’s economy, promote racial or cultural integration, and maybe even promote peace.
