Astoria Dry Cleaners Stole $90K From Workers, Attorney General Says

ASTORIA, QUEENS — An Astoria cleaners hung its workers out to dry by stealing $90,000 of their wages, according to state prosecutors, who are now forcing the business to repay the money.

A settlement with the owners of Enterprise Cleaner, alternately known as JM Pro or KTN Cleaner, was announced Tuesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office began investigating the business in January 2020.

As part of the $90,000 settlement, owners Fat Lun "Michael" Kong and Cheng Teh "Jeffrey" Tang admitted to underpaying "more than a dozen" of their workers by depriving them of the minimum wage, overtime pay and sick leave, James's office says.

For a year after New York increased its minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2018, the commercial dry cleaners — based in an industrial building at 19-64 42nd St., north of 20th Avenue — kept paying its workers below the minimum, prosecutors said.

Likewise, after a previous minimum wage increase at the end of 2016, the dry cleaners put off raising its workers' pay "for a few days," authorities said.

Meanwhile, ex-Enterprise workers said they were not paid proper wages when they worked overtime, and payroll records proved that Kong and Tang did not give another hour of pay when employees worked more than 10 hours in a day.

Between 2014 and 2020, when Enterprise typically employed about 20 workers at a time, Kong and Tang never had a paid sick leave policy — despite a state law requiring them to give at least 40 hours — and illegally forced employees to find a replacement before they took a sick day, prosecutors say.

In that same span, Enterprise also failed to give workers a written notice stating their pay rate, regular pay day, and other basic information, prosecutors say.

The settlement, dated Oct. 7, required Kong and Tang to immediately repay its workers $25,000 by Oct. 17, followed by $3,000 every month until July 2024, and another $2,000 by August 2024.

The investigation by state prosecutors started after a referral from the nonprofit Laundry Workers Center, and involved interviews with former Enterprise employees, sworn testimony from the two owners, and a review of company records.

"All workers should be treated with the utmost dignity and respect, but the owners of Enterprise Cleaners took advantage of their hardworking employees, forcing them to work long hours and failing to pay workers what they were owed," James said in a statement.

Others praising the settlement included State Sen. Jessica Ramos, Asemblymember ZOhran Mamdani and City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán.

"Today, we are sending a clear message to employers across Astoria and all of New York state: if you swindle workers out of their wages and guaranteed paid sick leave, you will be held accountable," Mamdani said.