Workers declared victory today after Teriyaki House management finally gave into the pressure of direct action and paid their employees the money the US Department of Labor stipulated.

Teriyaki House workers and their supporters once again protested outside the restaurant in Downtown Providence during lunch to demand that the restaurant pay its employees thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. During the last protest, just before Christmas, Teriyaki House management and lawyers agreed to pay Fidel de Leon, Emilio Garcia, Vicente Lobos and Pedro Gomez their back wages (and damages) as stipulated by the US Department of Labor, by January 22.

As the workers and supporter, organized by Fuerza Laboral and RI Jobs with Justice (JWJ) marched in front of the restaurant on Friday, dissuading customers from eating at the restaurant, the manager of Teriyaki House came out and discussed surrender terms with JWJ executive director Michael Araujo. After Araujo spoke with Teriyaki House’s lawyer on the phone, the restaurant manager headed directly to the US Department of Labor offices downtown and paid.

Minutes later, the unpaid employees, who had been fighting for what they have been owed for years, emerged holding checks. It was a surprising and joyous end to a long and difficult battle for fair pay.

• Workers claim unpaid wages at Teriyaki House rally
• Teriyaki House ruining Christmas for unpaid employees

This was the fourth demonstration at Teriyaki House over this issue. For years workers were not being paid minimum wage or overtime for 70-85 hour work weeks. You can see the demonstration and its successful conclusion in the first video below. In the second video, Heiny Maldonado of Fuerza Laboral talks about the power and necessity of direct action against a system that does not empower workers against their employers. Keally Cieslik provided the English translation in both videos.

The workers organized through Fuerza Laboral / Power of Workers, a community organization that builds worker leadership to fight workplace exploitation, and RI Jobs with Justice, a coalition of community and labor groups. In June 2015, former Teriyaki House workers filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor regarding their unpaid wages. The employees who filed the complaint had worked at the restaurant for up to three years, between 72 and 85 hours per week. During that time, they were only getting paid between $450 and $600 a week. The restaurant management discounted two hours of lunch/break each day when workers were actually given only 15 minutes to eat their lunch and took no other breaks.

The Christmas theme was especially poignant, as unpaid workers will be foregoing many aspects of Christmas that many who celebrate the holiday take for granted. “Christmas is an important time to be with family and buy gifts for your children, but we won’t have money this holiday,” says former Teriyaki House employee Fidel de Leon, “By stealing our wages, Teriyaki House stole Christmas from us and our children.”

During the action, a man who identified himself as the manager of the restaurant stood nearby with his cellphone, filming those who spoke out about the wage theft they experiences. his actions seemed intended to intimidate the former workers, and he laughed as speaker’s asserted the facts of their case. Later, the same man exited the restaurant a second time. This time he attempted to force a worker to lower his protest sign so that the cellphone camera could capture the worker’s face.

“I worked first 6 days a week, 12 hours a day but I was only paid $514 a week, which comes out to only $7/hr without any overtime,” says Vicente Lobos, one of the former Teriyaki House workers taking action today. “I’m very happy that the DOL has reached an agreement with Teriyaki House to pay us, and we want Teriyaki House to know that we will make sure they come through with this payment. I need my money now, I cannot wait any longer than I already have.”

Teriyaki House workers are part of a greater push to organize workers all along the food chain through Food Chain Workers RIsing, led by Fuerza Laboral and other members of RI Jobs with Justice. The workers’ struggle against wage theft at Teriyaki House is also part of a larger national campaign with Jobs with Justice to pressure the US Congress to pass the Power Act. The Power Act would expand protections for undocumented workers who are organizing for their rights in the workplace.

See also:

Workers claim unpaid wages at Teriyaki House rally

Fast food workers rally for $15 and a union at Wendy’s in Warwick

Workers, alongside allies and organizers from Fuerza Laboral and RI Jobs with Justice marched into Teriyaki House restaurant in Providence yesterday afternoon claiming unpaid wages and poor treatment from the owners. Workers say owners of the restaurant failed to pay minimum wage or overtime for over 70 hours of work a week. In addition, say organizers, “workers have been verbally harassed and physically abused. They’ve been called lazy and have been repeatedly intimidated by management.”

Teriyaki House has been under investigation by the US Department of Labor since workers filed their complaint, says Jobs with Justice.

This is the second wage action against Teriyaki House. Workers previously entered the restaurant in August demanding their wages, where management reportedly refused to pay and called the workers “lazy.”

Yesterday a much larger group of workers and supporters entered the store, chanting and shutting down the business until the police arrived and ordered the crowd to leave. Outside, the rally continued as a picket, as people held signs, chanted, sang songs and told their stories. Fuerza Labroal organizer Phoebe Gardner said that the Department of Labor should be done with their investigation by March, and if the wages continue to be unpaid, they would return for more actions against the restaurant.

The most fun part of the action was the impromptu singing that erupted, demonstrating both a rising solidarity and strength among this growing and powerful food chain worker labor movement in Rhode Island.

According to Fuerza, “Teriyaki House workers have been joining with other food chain workers in Rhode Island, like the Wendy’s workers who went on strike, ROC, and workers from Calise industrial bakery, to form the new coalition [called] Food Chain Workers RIsing. Our hope is to bring together the struggles of workers along the food chain in Rhode Island with real worker leadership.”

Fast food employees, restaurant workers and labor allies rallied outside the Wendy’s restaurant at 771 Warwick Ave in Warwick around noon as part of a national effort to kick off a year-long $15 minimum wage campaign ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Nearly 100 people gathered in the parking lot of Wendy’s, where the management had locked the doors ahead of the protests and only served meals through the drive-thru window.

Led by outgoing Rhode-Island Jobs with Justice executive director Jesse Strecker, workers chanted and marched around the building, finally settling in front for a series of speeches from various workers and advocates “all the way down the food chain.”

Long time Wendy’s worker and minimum wage advocate Jo-Ann Gesterling spoke not only about fair wages, but about wages stolen when management forces workers to work through their breaks, lack of accountability in the management structure, and other issues fast food workers deal with on a daily basis.

Demonstrators were not only demanding $15 an hour, fair treatment and a union, they were also demanding that Wendy’s join the the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program (FFP). Attentive readers will remember that the Brown Student Labor Alliance lead a protest in October around the FFP, described as a “ground-breaking model for worker-led social responsibility based on a unique collaboration among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers and 14 participating buyers.” It is “the first comprehensive, verifiable and sustainable approach to ensuring better wages and working conditions in America’s agricultural fields.”

Emelio Garcia, a former employee of Teriyaki House Restaurant in downtown Providence spoke about not having been paid for work he did at the restaurant. Wage theft is a story sadly common in Rhode Island, as more and more employees stand up and demand the wages that have been stolen from them by employers. Garcia says that he was docked for two hours of pay a day for breaks he was never actually allowed to take.

Flor Salazar, who worked at Café Atlantic and was owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, was allegedly assaulted by owner Juan Noboa with a baseball bat when she and a group of workers confronted Noboa at his home Halloween morning. “We are tired of having our work stolen, we are tired of being disrespected in our workplace,” said Salazar, “It’s enough.”

The final speaker was a not a restaurant worker but Magdalene Smith, a CNA working at a Pawtucket nursing home. “This is not a fight for just restaurants, but for everybody,” said Smith. “Everybody deserves $15. We work hard.”

In addition to Jobs With Justice and the Brown Student/Labor Alliance the event was sponsored by 1199 SEIU Rhode Island, Fuerza Laboral/Power of Workers and Restaurant Opportunities Center of Rhode Island.