A judge has finally ruled on a long-simmering dispute between a restaurant and its deliverymen. Last March deliverymen at the popular Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Grill, which has locations in Greenwich Village and on the Upper West Side, demanded a raise from owners Simon and Michelle Nget. The deliverymen reasoned that since the chain was pulling in more than $2 million a month, they ought to earn more than $120 for a 75-hour week.
They were also fed up with their work conditions, which they claim included $200 fines if a customer complained about a late delivery, $50 for closing the restaurant’s door too loudly, and, when they got robbed, a rule requiring them to pay for all the orders they delivered that day out of their tips. When the Ngets offered an additional $5 per shift, the deliverymen turned it down and took them to court, with help from advocacy group Justice Will Be Served.
Twenty-eight of the deliverymen were fired during the next two days, in violation of a federal law prohibiting employers from “retaliating against workers for engaging in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection.” As the lawsuit dragged on, diners arriving at the Saigon Grill locations were forced to cross picket lines of angry, unemployed workers, all of them indigent Chinese immigrant, and NY Magazine looked at citywide phenomenon of deliverymen uprisings.
Now a judge with the National Labor Relations Board has ruled the owners illegally fired the men and must reinstate them, with back pay for all the wages they were denied since their dismissal. It’s presumed the Ngets will now have to pay the deliverymen the minimum wage of $4.85 an hour, which is roughly triple the $1.60 some claimed they were paid. Saigon Grill plans to appeal the decision.
Photo: Syb.
