Davis Polk, in conjunction with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), represented 36 current and former employees of Saigon Grill—a pair of popular Vietnamese restaurants located on the Upper West Side and near Union Square—in a five day bench trial before Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs, 35 delivery workers and one orders packer, are all immigrants from China’s Fujian Province, none of whom speak English. The workers were paid well below the minimum wage, in some cases less than $2.00 an hour, and did not receive overtime compensation for work weeks that lasted as long as 80 hours. They were also fined, forced to kick back wages to their employers and required to purchase and maintain their own bicycles in violation of state and federal law. Twenty-two of the delivery workers were fired in March 2007 in retaliation for planning to bring this lawsuit, also in violation of state and federal law. Because of the popularity of the Saigon Grill restaurants and the number of workers affected, this action and a related NLRB proceeding have drawn coverage from the New York Times, The American Lawyer and New York magazines, and other media outlets. The parties are currently engaged in post-trial briefing and damage calculations.
We are assisting delivery workers from five other restaurants in their claims against their employers. One case has settled and the other four are in the midst of discovery.
In addition to our existing restaurant delivery workers cases, we have worked with AALDEF and the Urban Justice Center on wage and hour cases involving garment workers, domestic workers and restaurant staff for more than 10 years.
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