Paul Bass Photo
A 2015 protest outside Thai Taste.
The state Department of Labor agreed with New Haven immigrant-rights demonstrators that a downtown restaurateur was ripping off his workers.
After an investigation, the department ordered Wiroj Jaruchaiykul, the owner of Thai Taste at 1151 Chapel St., to pay three employees $36,155.47 (including $2,000 in interest) for two years’ worth of unpaid overtime, according to labor department spokeswoman Nancy Steffens. one employee was owed about $19,000.
The department also fined Jaruchaiykul $6,900 for failing to keep time records or to pay overtime.
The employees, who trained at Thai Taste and worked at a second Jaruchaiykul-owned restaurant on State Street called the Rice Pot, filed a complaint with the Department’s Wage and Workplace Standards Division in November 2015. The division’s investigation “found that no time records were being kept, and interviews with the employees and employer determined that the employees were often working 55 hours a week, sometimes more, and were not being paid overtime,” Steffens said.
The group Unidad Latina en Accion/ New Haven Workers Association took up the workers’ cause in dinner-hour demonstrations in front of Thai Taste. The owner, meanwhile, denied the allegations.