Fekkak Mamdouh

Fekkak Mamdouh came to the United States from Morocco in the late 80’s at the age of 27. He worked in New York City restaurants since he arrived, and finally moved to Windows on the World when it reopened in 1996. As a waiter at Windows, Mamdouh was always a staunch worker advocate. As shop steward for the union H.E.R.E 100 at Windows, Mamdouh constantly stood up for the rights of all workers; workers from all shifts and positions turned to him for help and assistance.
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, after that Mamdouh Co-founded ROC-NY, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, in April 2002. In January 2008, he co-founded the country’s first national restaurant worker organization, Restaurant Opportunities Center United.
In 2019 Mamdouh Co-founded One Fair Wage to educate the public, press and decision-makers about the need for all workers in America to be paid a full, fair minimum wage.
One Fair Wage seeks to end subminimum wages and the notion of tips as wage replacement for all workers in America, including tipped workers, workers with disabilities, youth workers, and incarcerated workers. One Fair Wage has three key pillars of work: policy shift, industry shift, and narrative shift.
He also co-authored a book about his life and ROC-NY, The Accidental American with Rinku Sen.
Mamdouh also help opening of Colors restaurants in NY, Detroit and Oakland where we trained more than 6000 restaurants workers as of 2019 to advance in the industry for better wages.
Mamdouh is currently the Chief of Staff, Senior Director, and Co-founder of One Fair Wage.