Korean Restaurant Workers Say They Were Forced to "Volunteer" as Farm Workers | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Korean Restaurant Workers Say They Were Forced to "Volunteer" as Farm Workers

Kum Gang San, a popular Korean restaurant in New York City, is accused of blackmailing employees into unpaid labor with threats of deportation, Sukjong Hong reports for Gothamist:

Servers and bussers at a popular Korean restaurant say they were forced to work 18-hour shifts without overtime, attend church before work on Sundays, and “volunteer” their time picking vegetables at a farm outside the city. According to a federal lawsuit they filed against the management of the restaurant, any refusal to heed the owner’s extraordinary demands resulted in humiliation, termination, and threats of blacklisting and deportation.

Former employees report that if they declined the “invitation” spend their days off as unpaid farmworkers gathering kimchi ingredients, they were expected to drop to their knees and beg their boss’s forgiveness. 

In addition to being forced to attend 90-minute unpaid church services before work on Sundays, former employees say they were expected to take turns paying $150 out-of-pocket for catering after the sermon! 

The former employees aired their grievances in federal court during a civil trial that concluded on Monday. 

[Photo credit: Word to Table, Creative Commons.]