Flushing workers protest against restaurant owner

From the Times Ledger:

A Flushing businessman with about a dozen restaurants, karaoke bars, nail salons and other businesses throughout New York City came under heavy fire during a protest Tuesday afternoon in front of his Chao Zhou Restaurant in the heart of downtown Flushing.

The protest, which drew several dozen people together on the street next to the eatery at 40-52 Main St., was aimed at exposing what former workers and representatives of the Justice Will Be Served Campaign labor advocacy group said are the unlawful labor practices used at Tse Yue Wang’s string of businesses.

Workers at Chao Zhou declined to comment and could not provide contact information for Wang Tuesday afternoon. Wang’s lawyer, Joe Labuda, did not return a request for comment.

A group of workers and former workers of Wang’s recently filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against Wang, a number of his shops and several of his employee supervisors.

The complaint alleges Wang paid workers less than minimum wage, that he failed to provide overtime pay and that when workers at several of his businesses — including Tomo Sushi and Sake Bar in Morningside Heights in Manhattan — attempted to organize for their rights, he shuttered the shops and fired all the employees.

Now he has applied for bankruptcy protection as a way to avoid his responsibilities, the suit alleges.