UWS Deliverymen Still Waiting For Stolen Wages After 2015 Lawsuit

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Ten delivery workers at an Upper West Side restaurant that were awarded a $700,000 wage theft ruling in 2015 have collected only a fraction of their judgement and are asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign a bill that gives workers additional tools to recoup stolen wages.

Saloman Perez Lopez delivered food at Indus Valley on Broadway and West 100th Street for three years. The restaurant's owners, Phuman and Lakhvir Singh, paid Perez Lopez and other delivery workers every week, but never compensated the workers for overtime and did not pay the proper minimum wage.

In 2015, Perez Lopez was awarded more than $41,000 in wages he should have earned during this three years at Indus Valley, but he's barely collected any of that money. Indus Valley's owners claimed they sold the business after the ruling and don't have enough money to pay the workers their lost wages.

"They avoided paying what they owed us by changing the name of the restaurant," Perez Lopez said.

A restaurant called Manhattan Valley now operates in the former Indus Valley space, but former delivery workers claim that the Singhs still show up at the business. The Singhs have only paid out $110,000 of the $700,000 owed to the ten Indus Valley workers because they were forced to make payments after claiming they had sold the restaurant, workers said.

"I worked at Indus Valley for nine years. I was paid $3 an hour and not overtime pay," deliveryman Efren Caballero said. "The boss supposedly sold the business, changing the name... but we know that it's the same boss; they just want to avoid paying us."

Caballero was awarded more than $180,000 in the 2015 judgement. The process to recoup lost wages began more than 10 years ago. Workers at Indus Valley first took their complaints to the Department of Labor in 2008, and sued their Indus Valley bosses in 2012, Perez Lopez said.

Indus Valley deliverymen used Thursday's rally to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign the SWEAT (Securing Wages Earned Against Theft) bill. The legislation, introduced by State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal of the Upper West Side and State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens, will make it easier for workers awarded wage theft judgements to collect their hard-earned money.

The bill expands New York's lien law to workers of all industries. Currently, only workers in the construction industries can place a lien on the assets of employers to ensure compensation if proper wages are not paid. The SWEAT bill would allow workers to apply the same types of liens for employers who fail to adhere to state and federal wage laws. The bill would also make it easier for workers to have the courts freeze the assets of employers accused of wage theft during the duration of a lawsuit.

Both the State Assembly and State Senate passed the SWEAT bill in the latest legislative session, but Gov. Cuomo has not yet signed the bill. Legislators had been trying to pass the bill for years, but ran into opposition when Republicans controlled the State Senate.

"The SWEAT bill, which I have fought to pass for years, will ensure that hardworking New Yorkers who were cruelly taken advantage of by their employers won't be left holding a judgement that's not even worth the paper it's written on," Rosenthal said in a statement.

Workers announced Thursday that a rally will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at Cuomo's Midtown Manhattan office to pressure the governor into immediately signing off on the bill.