When will Johnny drop the charade?

From the Daily News:

After taking fire for stretching the truth in his 2009 campaign, City Controller John Liu is again claiming that he toiled in a sweatshop beside his mother as a young child in Queens.

“After working in a sweatshop, John Liu — a son of immigrants — used education to get ahead,” Liu boasts in a campaign flyer distributed by his mayoral campaign this week.

The Daily News investigated the sweatshop claim four years ago, when Liu was campaigning for controller, and found his hard-knock child labor tale to be an extreme exaggeration.

Liu had come to the United States from Taiwan as a young boy but largely lived a middle-class life in Queens. His parents bought a large home in Bayside five years after arriving in the country and his banker father, who was studying for an MBA, went on to become president of a bank.

In a 2009 interview with The News, Liu’s mother debunked her son’s wild campaign story.

Jamy Liu said she worked on a knitting machine at home to help pay household bills, and that she sometimes asked her young son to help spin balls of yarn or thread. She would pay him 25 cents for each spool as part of his allowance.

Fool me once, shame on you...

This photo was sent in with the title, "What is Congressman Joe Crowley's brother up to? Answer: 5-11 47th Avenue LIC, NY 11101"

(Which, by the way, the City pulled out of and sold to a developer.)

So I responded with a question of my own.

"Who will this group endorse in future elections? Let me guess. Crowley?"

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Johnny kicks off mayoral campaign by repeating a lie

From the Daily News:

City Controller John Liu officially kicked off his mayoral bid Sunday by touting that he worked in a sweatshop as a child - a biographical claim the Daily News debunked years ago.

Speaking to supporters from the steps of City Hall, Liu pitched as cherished fact his childhood work alongside his mother in a sweatshop — but his parents said during the Democrat’s 2009 campaign for controller that their son's version of history was incorrect.

"My dad took a job far beneath what he had had in Taiwan," Liu said Sunday. "My mom spent years in a sweatshop, where I often had to pitch in to make ends meet."

Four years ago, The News investigated Liu's “sweatshop” story — his campaign had run ads featuring bleak factory scenes — and learned from his mother, Jamy Liu, that she never worked in a sweatshop.

She said she mostly worked from her Flushing, Queens, home on a knitting machine and that her son would help her, getting paid 25 cents for every ball he spun on a yarn-spinning tool.

John Liu’s father, a banker named Joseph who owned the middle-class home where his son was raised, confirmed in 2009 that his wife never worked in a sweatshop and neither did their son.

After The News broke the story, Liu acknowledged it was an exaggeration, telling the newspaper’s editorial board that he bought candy with the money his mother gave him for helping her.

From the NY Observer:

Mr. Liu might well believe that voters will treat the accusations against his associates no more seriously than he himself seems to regard them. The polls indicate at the moment that he is making a serious miscalculation—he trails Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. And if you think they’ll remain silent about the Liu campaign’s transgressions, you haven’t been following New York politics very long.

Some of Mr. Liu’s supporters, particularly in the Asian-American community, have suggested that he is the victim of a racist plot, presumably orchestrated by anonymous power brokers who can’t bear the thought of an Asian in Gracie Mansion. To his eternal discredit, Mr. Liu has not dismissed these ridiculous accusations out of hand. If anything, he has stoked the paranoia, saying that “something is driving this so-called investigation.”

Well, he’s right about that—something is driving this investigation. And that something is his campaign’s dreadful fund-raising practices.

It’s a simple matter, Mr. Liu: if your campaign had followed the rules, you wouldn’t be in this mess.

The man should be preparing to leave public service, not asking for promotion to the city’s highest elective office.

John Liu: Twice a liar

From the NY Post:

John Liu hasn’t officially announced, but he’s already recycling an old — and debunked — tale about working in a sweatshop while growing up in Queens.

In a video released for his recent birthday, Liu put it this way: “My mom worked for a long time in a garment factory, and when I was seven I got my first job working in the same garment factory, and I learned first-hand why they called the place a sweatshop.”

The last time he used this story was in his successful 2009 race for city comptroller. The recycling of this tear-jerker is a signal that he now has his eye on Gracie Mansion.

Don’t go reaching for the Kleenex, either. Liu’s own mom says the story is fiction.

After Liu began blanketing the airwaves with his startling claim four years ago (“By seven, I had to work in a sweatshop to make ends meet”), his mother corrected him.

“I never go to the factory,” she told a reporter. “I just go there and pick up some material and bring home, because I had to take care of my kids.” She says John used to help her with garment work back at home to earn a few extra dollars.

That was New York’s bizarre introduction to John Liu. Soon, voters will likely be asked to consider him as a candidate for mayor. What does it say that he’s repeating a tale his own mother says is a lie?

Maybe he hopes that if he tells a story often enough, voters will simply believe him.

Maybe he’s a bit confused in the head.

Whatever the case, Liu may want to figure out his own past before he asks New Yorkers to trust him with their future.

Piñata assemblers treated like piñatas

From the Daily News:

Three women workers at a Queens piñata factory took a whack at their bosses in a lawsuit Monday, accusing them of sweatshop conditions and lousy pay.

The plaintiffs were forced to work 11-hour shifts in the locked basement of a party supplies store while earning only $3 per hour off the books, according to a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

A malfunctioning boiler in the confined space at Let’s Have a Party retail store added to the deplorable working conditions, the suit said.

The illegal basement factory in Woodside had "no windows, no ventilation … was cold, damp and smelled of dead mice and sewage," the complaint said.

The basement factory was connected by a staircase to the party supplies store on 45th Ave., but the doors at the top of the stairs were locked and there was no other direct access to the street, the workers’ lawyer, Artemio Guerra, said.

The plaintiffs, Maria Diaz, Ruth Dominguez and Laura Vidals, were "imprisoned" in the basement when government inspectors attempted to gain access to the building.

They are seeking unspecified back pay. Domingo and Diaz were fired allegedly after complaining about their low pay.

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.

Liu's own mother calls him a liar!

From the Daily News:

In powerful new TV ads, emotional music plays over pictures of city controller candidate John Liu as a little boy.

"He came here at 5, and by seven had to work in a sweatshop to make ends meet," a narrator drones over images of women hunched over machines in a crowded factory.

"Working in finance taught Liu how to account for every penny, but working in that sweatshop as a kid taught him why we need to."

There's only one problem with the compelling story of his immigrant childhood toiling beside his mother in a sweatshop — his parents and two of his mother's friends say it never happened.

She worked at home.

"I never go to the factory," Liu's mother, Jamy Liu, 69, told the Daily News of her 10 years in the garment industry.

"I just go there and pick up some material and bring home because I had to take care of my kids," she said in an interview arranged by her son.

Sweatshop workers owed hundreds of thousands of dollars

From Crain's:

Local garment workers staged a protest against two clothing factories in Long Island City, Queens on Tuesday. They were rallying for the rights of six Chinese workers, who are allegedly owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages and were fired unlawfully from Great Wall Corp., a garment manufacturer, and Silver Fashion, a subcontractor which produces for Great Wall.

Over 100 demonstrators were in attendance, along with representatives from local advocacy groups including the Chinese Staff & Workers’ Association, National Mobilization against SweatShops, and New York City NOW.

“Long Island City is a sweatshop zone, these conditions are rampant and have only gotten worse through the years. Today we really want to make a stand,” said Jei Fong, an organizer with the Chinese Staff & Workers’ Association. “People need to demand better conditions; it’s the only way for the garment industry to improve.”

In December, the six workers filed a lawsuit with the National Labor Relations Board against Great Wall and Silver Fashion, which are each run by a husband and wife. The complaints alleged that the employers deducted 5% from the workers’ minimum wage pay, did not pay them for overtime, and reduced their piece-rate payments, despite work weeks of over 100 hours. However, the workers were fired from both factories shortly after the filing, leading to a second lawsuit for the wrongful termination.

Liu recalls his sweatshop childhood

From the Daily News:

City Councilman John Liu is playing the immigrant card in a new biographical video he's launching on the Web.

"When I was 7, I got my first job working in [a] garment factory, and I learned firsthand why they called the place a 'sweatshop,'" Liu says. "I like to say I was taught in public school, but I was educated in a sweatshop."

Interspersed with anecdotes from his supporters and highlights of his career are bits of Liu's life story: A childhood memory of having kids stare him down and spit in his face, his anger at a lawmaker's tirade denouncing Asians as "illegal aliens" and "criminal smugglers."

"I know what discrimination feels like - and I don't want anyone else to feel it," Liu says. "This city makes a promise with us: It doesn't matter where you or your parents came from. What matters is how far you want to go."

Sweatshop made NYPD uniforms

From Gothamist:

State Labor Department investigators who raided a clothing manufacturer in the garment district Tuesday night say sweatshop workers had been toiling to make dress uniforms for the NYPD. According to NY1, the department doesn't have a contract with the raided company, Forest Uniform Corp., but had been recommending officers privately buy their uniforms from them. Labor Department Commissioner Patricia Smith told reporters yesterday that the company has been cheating its 16 employees out of nearly $500,000 in overtime pay: "While the fake timecards show employees working 35 or 40 hours in a given workweek, the real ones told a much different story. Employees were found to be working 70 to 80 hours a week, sometimes without a day of rest."