Aliyya Swaby Photo
A rally against wage theft at the former Gourmet Heaven deli turned into a heated confrontation when a Yale representative showed up to vouch for the store’s new owner.
The Yale University Properties representative, Patrick O’Brien (pictured at top right), urged protestors who turned out at the Broadway store Monday afternoon to meet one on one with Sun Yup Kim, owner of the new Good Nature Market. Kim signed a lease with Yale University Properties to replace Gourmet Heaven at 15 Broadway and 44 Whitney Ave. starting last Friday. Yale brought him in after law enforcement agents and protesters exposed the previous owner for stealing wages from immigrant employees.
Picketers, local workers and volunteers with Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) protested Monday to demand the workers get paid. They said they had no cause to believe Kim was better than his predecessor and asked him to take a public stand against wage theft in New Haven.
After a Department of Labor investigation last summer found a number of labor violations, Gourmet Heaven’s owner Chung Cho still owes around $115,000 to about two dozen workers for years of unpaid wages and overtime.
Yale University Properties, landlord of the two buildings, did not renew Cho’s lease, set to expire this upcoming June. Last Friday morning, Yale announced Kim was to take over the use of the space under a new name — while keeping most other aspects of the store the same. (State records show Kim (pictured) incorporated “Good Nature Cafe Inc.” at 15 Broadway on Oct. 23, 2014, months before Yale’s announcement.)
Kim told the Independent that he plans to run his business “the right way” and plans to renovate the store in the near the future. “Everybody has minimum wage and overtime. I’m trying to follow the labor rules,” he said. He said he did not know the protestors were scheduled to picket in front of the store Monday afternoon.
ULA spokesperson Megan Fountain questioned the timing of the university’s announcement and said Yale has not been transparent in the way it handles wage theft on its property.
“We want to let students know when they come back from [spring break] that our boycott of Gourmet Heaven is not over,” she said. Fountain shared a report the organization recently released about the statewide “wage theft crisis,” urging Connecticut legislators to adopt measures that force employers to pay workers after successful court cases.
Fountain (pictured) introduced Edgar Sandoval (pictured at top left with O’Brien), who said he was the victim of two-wage theft cases in New Haven. He went to the Department of Labor to ask them to look into a downtown employer who refused to pay him overtime for two years though he had worked 65 to 100 hours per week. But Sandoval said he received a letter saying it would take almost a year to start an investigation and containing a “letter of dismissal.”
O’Brien exited the store and introduced himself to Sandoval, offering him the opportunity to talk to Kim “without any cameras” and to get to know an “upstanding citizen” looking to do right by the community. He showed the crowd a packet of “recognitions and awards” Kim has received during 15 years operating a fresh market business in New York, including certificates from the Korean American Small Business Service Center of New York and the Korean American Grocers’ Association of New York.
“Since when does the university speak for businesses? I’m a student here and I don’t like the fact that my university speaks for business owners rather than for workers and for the community members,” said Greg Williams, a Yale Divinity School student.
“That’s not what the university is doing here,” O’Brien said.
“You’re literally coming out here and acting as an ambassador for this capitalist, for this business owner and speaking for him instead of standing here and standing in solidarity with the people who live here and the people who work here,” Williams said. “Quite frankly, this makes me ashamed to be affiliated with Yale.”
“I fully believe in the rights of all human beings and of all workers,” O’Brien said, addressing Sandoval directly. “I’m just coming out here to say that [Kim] is more than willing to welcome people to go into his business, but he also hopes to offer some statement.” He said Lauren Zucker, director of University Properties, planned to meet with Yale students and local community members to discuss the change in management.
Fountain said she wants Yale to put regulations in place that deter future tenants of Yale properties from taking advantage of its workers, in conjunction with the state Department of Labor. O’Brien told the Independent that a formal conversation with Kim was likely to follow the initial meeting with Zucker.
Protesters Monday said they wanted Kim to “take a stand” against Cho’s actions, and that they did not believe Yale’s assertion that the new owner would be any different. “There are many ‘upstanding citizens’ that have exploited the community and the world in general. So ‘upstanding citizen’ doesn’t say anything to me. He needs to prove it,” said Rosario Caicedo, a ULA volunteer.
Two former workers at Gourmet Heaven participated in Monday’s protest and joined the picket line that impeded pedestrians walking past the new store. Cristian Ramirez and Adin Morales, both underage laborers when Cho hired them, said they worked 72 hours per week making less than $5 per hour.
Morales, who was 16 when he started working in 2011, said he sought out work at Gourmet Heaven because “when one comes from Mexico … whatever work one finds is good.” He was there for 11 months and worked nights, which he said was difficult for him. Now he is unemployed.
He said he wants the new management to have compassion for the workers and pay them a “salario justo,” a just salary, for a just life.