No one can deny that the (mostly) men that deliver Chinese food to thousands of apartments on a daily basis are not hardworking individuals. I know that my favorite local place, Noodles on 28th always gets the order to my door almost instantaneously. So when I found out that many of them are striking and suing a few Chinese restaurants across the city because they aren't being paid the minimum wage, that pissed me off.
From The New York Times:
Call it the deliverymen’s rebellion. These workers, almost all of them immigrants from China, have picketed several Saigon Grill, Ollie’s and Our Place outlets, accusing these well-known Asian restaurants of paying them as little as $1.40 an hour, far less than the federal and state minimum wage. The workers have filed federal wage lawsuits in Manhattan against those restaurant companies, and their advocates say they will soon sue a dozen other restaurants in the city.
“The conditions are pretty bad in all the restaurants, so there’s no real advantage to switch to another restaurant,” said Yu Guan Ke, a deliveryman who said Saigon Grill usually paid him just $120 in wages for his 75-hour weeks. “Before we would accept whatever wages they would give us, but now we see we should stand up for what we’re entitled to under the law.”
Mr. Ke, one of the plaintiffs, said his pay came to $1.60 an hour before tips; New York State law requires that deliverymen receive at least $4.85 an hour before tips. He said he worked 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. six days a week and often received $100 a day in tips, making 20 to 30 deliveries a day. (The state minimum wage is $7.15 an hour for non-tipped workers, $2 higher than the federal minimum.)
Based on prior complaints in Chinatown and the fact that judges have awarded workers millions in compensation for other grievances, I would tend to believe the workers before the owners. Although times are tough for any restaurant paying rent in this city, it is no excuse to take advantage of people that are trying to make an honest living. Not that this matters to the accused. They intend to fight back, already using said lockouts and other means.
Regardless, if people are making less than $2 dollars an hour before tips, something definitely needs to be done. If I hear that Noodles on 28th does this to the people that deliver to me, I will most certainly boycott them. I hope you do the same if your favorite restaurant abuses their deliverymen. Having garlic chicken and steamed dumplings brought to my door is nice, but I can make the effort to find a place that pays a fair wage.
|