Restaurant Accused of Exploiting Immigrants
By ROBERT HANLEY
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August 30, 2001
New York Times / New York Region
WAYNE, N.J., Aug. 29 - Four former workers at a Chinese restaurant here and about 20 sympathizers demonstrated outside the establishment today, saying its owners and managers had failed to pay workers
and forced them to return some of their tips.
The demonstration's organizers said the event was just the start of an effort to protest what they said was exploitation of immigrant workers in the New York suburbs.
"I get phone calls every day from immigrants who are working in inhumane conditions - not getting paid, getting abused," said Jennifer Ching, a lawyer for the New Jersey Chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union, who took part in the rally.
She said the complaints come from recent immigrants from Asia, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia who work for landscapers, construction and demolition companies, factories and
restaurants.
Today's rally was called in support of four former employees of the restaurant, King Chef Buffet, on Hamburg Turnpike - a waitress and three waiters who filed a lawsuit against the restaurant last
September in United States District Court in Newark.
The suit charges violations of wage provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as sex and ethnic discrimination under New Jersey's civil rights law. The suit also seeks at least $1
million in back wages and damages for pain and suffering.
"Boycott sweatshops," the protesters chanted today as they marched with placards near the entrance to the restaurant. One of the English signs read: "King Chef Buffet Stop Stealing Wages and Tips."
The protest was also intended to attract attention to a growing problem: the failure of some New Jersey employersto pay the state-mandated minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to recent immigrants of many
nationalities, Ms. Ching said.
She contended that the State Labor Department, which enforces the wage law, is understaffed at a time of rising complaints by immigrants.
A spokesman for the department, Kevin Smith, disagreed, saying its investigative staff and workers' complaints about pay violations have been stable in recent years.
"The staff we have is working very hard to investigate every complaint that we receive," Mr. Smith said. He said the department was investigating wage complaints filed by employees of the King Chef
Buffet. He declined to offer details.
Efforts to elicit comments at the restaurant were unsuccessful. A man and a woman who stood in the lobby during the protest and identified themselves as friends of the owner refused to provide the
names of the owner or the restaurant's lawyer.
The rally was arranged by a grass- roots workers' center based in Chinatown in lower Manhattan, the Chinese Staff and Workers Association. Laura Liu, a staff organizer for the group, said it had about
1,300 members and has focused in recent months on attacking minimum-wage violations in Chinese-owned clothing factories, restaurants and construction companies.
Ms. Liu said the group was now expanding its campaigns to New Jersey and Long Island.
The protest attracted one prominent state labor leader, Thomas P. Giblin, the president of the Essex- West Hudson Labor Council, A.F.L- C.I.O., and, until recently, the chairman of the Democratic
State Committee. At one point, Mr. Giblin led the small band of protesters in a chant for justice.
Mr. Giblin said he accepted an invitation to attend because Chinese restaurant workers "deserve help." He said few if any, including those at the King Chef Buffet, were affiliated with unions. "That
doesn't mean an injustice shouldn't be rectified," he said. "It's a question of fairness."
The former waitress at the restaurant, Linda Chen, 29, said during the rally that she and her co-workers worked 13 hours a day six days a week, did not receive wages or overtime, and were forced to
pay "the boss" $18 a day from their tips to keep their jobs.
Ms. Chen also said that she and 14 co-workers, both men and women, were forced to live in a small one- bedroom apartment that the restaurant owner rented in nearby Paterson. At one point last summer,
she said, the apartment did not have lights or air-conditioning.
The workers' lawsuit said Ms. Chen was fired in July 2000. The three waiters who joined the suit, identified as David Wu, 31, Michael Xu, 29, and Jason Zhang, 30, quit their jobs in protest, Mr. Xu
said.
The suit charged that Ms. Chen was dismissed because of her sex and ethnicity. She said she lived in the Chinese city of Fuchow before immigrating to the United States legally in 1993.
Ms. Liu said natives of Fuchow are often belittled by other Chinese.
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