Waiters Grill Industry Conditions

There’s a festive look to Jing Fong, the biggest restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. Red drapes and lanterns line its huge, 1,000-seat dining room. Gold Chinese characters wish happiness and prosperity to couples holding raucous wedding receptions.

The waiters, however, are not a happy lot.

Jing Fong is at the center of a dispute over exploitation in Chinatown’s restaurant industry, where immigrants seeking a better life are often willing to do backbreaking work for less than a dollar an hour.

The New York state attorney general’s office has sued Jing Fong on behalf of 58 waiters and busboys seeking $1 million in allegedly skimmed tips plus $500,000 in back wages. A settlement is expected within a month, and Chinatown restaurateurs are paying close attention.

“I told my bosses what they were doing was illegal. They responded by docking me 10% of my tips for a month,” said Deng Shenggang, the whistle-blower behind the lawsuit. “When I complained again, they fired me.”

Deng, a stocky 32-year-old from Guangdong province in southern China, said he endured verbal abuse and 12-hour days, six days a week, at below minimum wage. He and the other waiters said they made as little as $200 a month in basic salary, with no overtime pay. Management routinely skimmed up to 50% of their tips, they said.

“Deng is a pioneer. He’s not known, but he’s changing the whole system,” said Kwong Hui, program coordinator of the Chinese Staff and Workers Assn., the civic group to which Deng first took his complaints. “This goes on everywhere in Chinatown and is increasingly common.”

Atty. Gen. Dennis Vacco filed suit in January, charging that waiters and busboys at Jing Fong were earning only $65 to $100 a week despite working 60 or more hours. At minimum wage, he said, they should have earned at least $213.88 weekly plus overtime and tips.

“We are dealing with immigrants who have come to this great country for a chance to live the American dream but instead are exploited by individuals who want to line their own pockets,” Vacco said.

Restaurant policy is to divide tips among all waiters and managers, with managers taking a significant chunk.

Cheng Chung-ko, the restaurant’s chairman, would not comment. His attorney, Hugh M. Mo, disputed Deng’s allegations.

“In a lot of Chinese restaurants, management and workers are blurred,” Mo said. Often, investors who helped start a restaurant pitch in setting tables or serving food, “so tips are distributed across the board. The waiters aren’t the only ones who touch the dishes.”

Chun Tsui, the restaurant’s general manager, told the attorney general that waiters put in 35-hour weeks and “never work overtime,” according to testimony obtained by Associated Press.

The restaurant now hangs a large red banner saying “Jing Fong Complies With Labor Law.”

One waiter, Chen Shaoqing, said workers were forced to sign statements approving the restaurant’s wage and tip policies and were instructed to tell investigators they worked only eight-hour days.

Tam Wei-chi, president of the Chinese-American Restaurant Assn. of Greater New York, called the Jing Fong allegations an isolated case.

“Most Chinese restaurants do what the Labor Department requires because they are watching Jing Fong,” said Tam, who owns the Oriental Pearl restaurant.

But a waiter at Harmony Palace, another large restaurant, said managers there received some of the waiters’ tips, and a waitress who pushes a dim sum cart said cart pushers get no tips at all.

Jing Fong managers accuse Deng of being disruptive, saying he argued with co-workers, once refused to pick up plates he dropped and was rude to a customer. Tsui said Deng was never penalized by having his tips reduced.

Fellow waiters Chen Baoxian and Chen Shaoqing confirmed that Deng occasionally had confrontations with other workers. But they also said a notice was posted in the restaurant saying Deng’s tips were being cut 10% for “talking back to his superior.”

One Jing Fong waiter, who declined to be identified, said he earns a little more than $20,000 a year. “We work from 10 a.m. to midnight or later, with 4 to 7 p.m. off,” he said.

The waiter said he puts up with it because he doesn’t speak English and can’t find a better job. His children, who were born here, will have more opportunities, he said.

Deng came to the United States seven years ago and moved through a series of waiter jobs. He started at Jing Fong in 1992. Despite difficulties, he worked his way up to an average monthly salary, including tips, of about $2,400. He was fired in 1992.

Because Deng sought outside help, he said he was blacklisted by other restaurants and could not find a job for 11 months. He is suing for back wages and his job.

“It’s not that I want to work there again, but a lot of people think I’m a bad guy, a troublemaker,” he said. “I just want to show that I’m ordinary, honest and law-abiding. And I want my money.”