| ROC-NY's Greatest Victory!
By Wobbly City 
June 27, 2008
Wobbly City wishes congratulations to our friends at ROC-NY!
From ROCNY.org:
Today we announced publicly ROC-NY's greatest victory ever. After 2 1/2 years of organizing 250 workers in seven restaurants in one of the City's largest mini-empires (restaurant companies), we announced a victory that includes $3.9 million in stolen tips and unpaid wages, management training to ensure ongoing compliance with the law, changes in the restaurant company’s tipping practices, half hour lunch breaks for workers, extension of the preliminary injunction that protects involved workers from retaliatory firings, and a grievance procedure for all workers in the company. Through the campaign, workers have also won several promotions for workers of color and new company-wide sexual harassment and promotions policies, and reinstatement plus $200,000 in back wages for workers fired for retaliation.
WE HAVE TO THANK YOU, OUR SUPPORTERS, ALLIES, AND FRIENDS, FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT OVER THE LAST 2 1/2 YEARS. WE JUST CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT OF RESTAURANT WORKERS.
ACCORDINGLY, PLEASE SAVE MONDAY, AUGUST 4TH EVENING FOR A BIG THANK YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS PARTY!!!
News coverage from
Crain's New York Business:
Workers settle with restaurant owner
Members of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York will receive $3.9 million in unpaid wages and tips from Fireman Hospitality Group, whose restaurants include Redeye Grill and Bond 45.
by Elisabeth Butler Cordova
June 18. 2008
Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York won its biggest tip yet Wednesday. Members of the grassroots nonprofit signed an agreement to receive $3.9 million in unpaid wages and tips from restaurant operator Fireman Hospitality Group.
The pact, which is subject to a judge’s approval, is the product of almost two years of protests by nearly 250 ROC members who currently or formerly worked for one of Fireman’s seven restaurants: Redeye Grill, Shelly’s, Trattoria Dell Arte, Café Fiorello, Brooklyn Diner and Brooklyn Diner Times Square, and Bond 45.
“The workers who led this campaign paved the way for the thousands of restaurant workers who experience workplace violations each day,” said Rekha Eanni, co-director of ROC-NY, in a statement. “This victory and Fireman’s good example of ultimately doing the right thing should remind employers that low-road and illegal practices are not going unnoticed; workers are increasingly starting to demand for better working conditions in their restaurant workplaces.”
Five years ago, ROC formed to help the displaced employees of Windows on the World find jobs after Sept. 11. It has since evolved into an advocacy group for all restaurant employees. It claims 2,400 workers as members, many of them immigrants, and has enlisted an eclectic support group of students from such institutions as Fordham Law School and Union Theological Seminary. These volunteers allow ROC to sustain its protests for long periods.
ROC said Fireman agreed to implement management training, a change in tipping practice, half-hour lunches for workers, and a grievance procedure for workers’ complaints. Fireman had already instituted new company-wide sexual harassment and promotions policies, as well as reinstated several fired workers with back wages, the nonprofit said.
Fireman did not immediately return calls for comment.
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Kosher Distributor Faces Labor Court Hearing
By Marissa Brostoff, The Forward 
June 13, 2008
From The Forward:
Just weeks after the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse made national news for problems with its workers, a kosher food distributor in Brooklyn has become caught up in an escalating dispute with its employees.
Flaum Appetizing fired nearly half its 45 employees May 28. According to Alvin Blyer, the Brooklyn regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, the employees had gone on strike in support of a co-worker who had been fired two days earlier for alleged involvement in a protest against the company’s labor policies. When they tried to return to work, they were told their jobs had been terminated.
“For now, I am not working, nor are any of my comrades,” said Irma Juarez, a Flaum employee who was among those fired. “The majority doesn’t want to go back, because we feel there was a lot of injustice done. Some feel that we could go back. But this can only happen if we all go back.”
Aviram Chen, a manager of the company, declined to comment on the situation.
In the past year, a number of Jewish organizations, led by Conservative movement rabbis, have suggested that consumers should consider the labor and environmental conditions behind kosher food. A union that is affiliated with the workers at Flaum has made similar arguments in its protests of the company. In a pamphlet handed out to shoppers outside Zabar’s, a gourmet supermarket on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the union said, “Flaum Appetizing Corp. strictly observes Halakha (Jewish Law) with regard to food, but arrogantly defies its teachings (and State and federal laws) concerning treatment of workers.”
Flaum has done business in Brooklyn for 90 years and specializes in smoked fish products and an array of side dishes. It has a storefront in a heavily Hasidic part of Williamsburg and distributes its products under its own brand name and other labels.
The NLRB, a government organization that investigates labor disputes, has been investigating Flaum for several months. The organization late last year issued a complaint against the company for its response to unionization efforts, and is now considering whether to file an additional complaint over the recent dismissals.
“Employers cannot lawfully fire employees for protesting,” Blyer said. He added that this was the case regardless of whether the employees were protesting a lawful or unlawful dismissal of a co-worker.
The upheaval at Flaum comes after a long series of controversies over the labor conditions at Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, located in Postville, Iowa. After years of complaints about the working conditions at the plant, in mid-May nearly 400 undocumented workers were arrested in a raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There does not appear to be a connection between the two cases, although most of the Flaum employees, like those at Agriprocessors, are immigrants from Latin America.
The Flaum employees have been attempting to join the International Workers of the World union for the past year. According to IWW organizer Billy Randel, the unionization effort prompted the company to meet some worker demands regarding vacation days, wages and overtime pay, but also led the company to harass workers involved in unionizing and to intimidate others.
According to Blyer, after the NLRB files its complaint, the company will either come to a settlement with its workers or will face trial in an administrative law court.
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E-Z Supply Ordered to Pay IWWs $1 Million:
An IU 460 Legal Update
By Stephanie Basile 
June 02, 2008
From Industrial Worker, June 2008
Since the IWW Industrial Union 460 began organizing in foodstuffs warehouses 3 years ago, we’ve organized in ten workplaces with varying degrees of success. One issue at every shop has been the employer’s failure to comply with wage and hour laws.
Many companies have retaliated by firing workers for their union activity. Workers have fought back through strikes, pickets, demonstrations, and selective legal action, among other tactics. We find legal action to be most effective when combined with these other methods, and when viewed as a means and not an end. This is a report on our legal status, but readers should understand that legal action is one of many tools workers are using to win their demands.
About a year and a half after we began utilizing legal action, several favorable rulings have recently come down and several settlements have been reached. Since the rulings have just came down, companies have not yet begun making payments.
Handyfat Trading (now called HDF Trading)
Six workers were awarded a total of $360,000. The union recently made a motion to require Handyfat to pay interest and legal fees which could raise the total amount.
E-Z Supply (now called Sunrise Plus)
Thirteen workers were awarded a total of $1.068 million. The owners have tried to escape liability by forming a new corporation called Sunrise Plus. The union has made a motion to define Sunrise Plus as an alter ego for E-Z Supply, which would hold Sunrise Plus liable for the judgment against E-Z Supply.
Giant Big Apple
Fifteen of seventeen workers have settled. The fifteen will receive a total of $325,000. The remaining two have yet to settle.
Amersino
Fifteen of sixteen workers have settled. Due to a confidentiality agreement, the union is unable to disclose the amount of money.
Top City Produce
The company was investigated by the New York Attorney General’s office. Negotiations are currently under way.
Wild Edibles
In September 2007, sixteen workers filed a lawsuit over illegally withheld overtime pay and retaliation. An additional eight workers have since joined the case. The plaintiffs are set to request class certification, which would expand coverage in the case to all current and former workers going back six years.
A few months after the suit was filed, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering the company not to retaliate against any worker who is part of the suit. The company has since allegedly violated this injunction several times, and the workers’ lawyers recently filed a motion to hold the company in contempt of court. To date, eleven of the twenty four workers involved in the case have been fired or constructively discharged.
Flaum Appetizing
A back wage case is proceeding against the company. In late May, 20 workers were terminated for union activity. The union will be filing a complaint with the NLRB.
Penang Restaurant
Penang, a Malaysian restaurant in the Upper East Side, closed down in summer 2007. Workers at the restaurant had been working 12-hour days for under minimum wage when they chose to join the IWW in early 2006. The IWW issued a heavy flyering campaign outside the restaurant after the boss refused to honor an agreement with the union.
HWH
HWH changed its name twice before closing down in fall 2007. One of the most slave-like warehouses in the industry, HWH required workers to put in as many as 116 hours per week, with drivers often working multiple days in a row with no time off. The union reached an agreement with the company in July 2007. Shortly after, HWH locked out the workers and changed its name to Dragonland, and then to US Garden, before closing for good.
Jim Crutchfield, Daniel Gross, and Billy Randel contributed to this article.
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