Showing posts with label unfair labour practices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unfair labour practices. Show all posts

Monday, December 17, 2012

For New Yorkers, Having a Job No Longer Guarantees a Paycheck

For employees of restaurants, even trendy ones, having a job doesn't mean that you will get paid.

In January 2010, The New York Times reported that the popular Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Grill was facing allegations of "harassing and firing workers who protested age discrimination and expressed support for joining a union." These were the second set of labour violations against Saigon Grill.

In 2008, "... Saigon was forced to pay $4.6 million to its deliver workers, after a federal judge found that the owners at the time, Simon and Michelle Nget, regularly violated minimum-wage and overtime laws, paying their employees as little as $1.65 an hour," reported the Columbia Spectator.

All across New York City, restaurant employees were not getting paid. Employees of Flor de Mayo, Tomo Sushi, Vine Sushi and Sake, and Ollies, a popular restaurant with multiple locations, had to resort to legal action to collect their due wages.

Many of the restaurants, which owed employees millions in unpaid wages, filed for bankruptcy.

Many restaurant employees were not paid overtime, and the hourly wages that they were paid were "well below legal limits."

It's not known, but it was suspected, that the bankruptcy filings were a way for the restaurants to try to avoid making full payment of the back wages rightfully owed to their employees. Bankruptcy reorganisations allow companies to continue operating whilst they try to restructure or renegotiate their debts.

Restaurant employees, who work as deliverymen, are often immigrants with low occupational skills or language barriers, and many probably believe that they have no choice but to put up with the wage fraud by their employers. Some of the employees were "required to work 11 to 13 hours a day, usually six days a week," The New York Times reported, for example. Deliverymen at Saigon Grill were found to have been paid approximately $2 an hour. In their work situation, it would be easy for unscrupulous employers to exploit vulnerable employees.

Employees at popular New York City restaurants are not the only ones, who are risk of not getting paid their due wages.

What would have happened to the wage dynamic in New York City, had Wal-Mart been allowed to set up some of its huge stores here ?

Recently, a new labour movement was launched around employees at fast food restaurants, too. All this talk brings us to the issue : what is a "living wage" ?

Just because you might have a restaurant job in some of New York City's most busiest restaurants, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can count on your rightfully complete paycheck, much less a living wage.

What does this say about our economy, if the success of some businesses are premised on finding ways to seriously underpay their employees ?

The information about Saigon Grill and Ollies was from 2008 to 2010. Earlier this year, five locations of East Japanese Restaurants agreed to a court settlement for underpayment of and backwages to 225 current and former waiters, runners, and bussers for $1.25 million.

Are service industry employees being routinely exploited ?

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Black Friday Mic Check at Maryland Walmart

From Occupy Wall Street :

According to the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, 1,000 protests occurred at Walmart stores across 46 states, with hundreds of workers walking off the job in an unprecedented decentralized, open-source strike at the retail giant.

David Tovar, the Vice President for Communications, spoke with Carol Costello from CNN on Tuesday, November 20, before the Black Friday actions took place across the nation.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Chicago Teachers Union Closer To Going On Strike

From The Chicago Tribune :

The Chicago Teachers Union filed a 10-day strike notice on Wednesday in an attempt to put additional pressure on Chicago Public Schools negotiators in ongoing contract talks.

At a packed news conference Wednesday, CTU president Karen Lewis accused CPS leaders and the mayor of engaging in a "smear campaign" against teachers, raising the possibility for the city's first teachers' strike in 25 years. ...

Read more : Chicago Teachers Union files 10-day strike notice

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

CUNY, NYPD Provoke Violence Among Peaceful Student Protesters

CUNY Attacks Tuition Hike Protest


Under the caption of, "Police loving violence against the students and citizens," AnonOps Communications blog posted this observations about how private CUNY security and NYPD are increasingly using violence against peaceful protesters :

Occupy Cuny and allied protestors who gathered Monday at Baruch College to express opposition to CUNY tuition hikes, unfair labor practices, and privatization were met with an increasingly familiar response: violent suppression of their basic right to dissent. Protestors were barred from attending a so-called "public" meeting of the school's trustees and ordered to disperse. CUNY security and NYPD moved in with nightsticks drawn, turning a nonviolent protest into a chaotic melee.