Korean Restaurant Owners Agree to Form Mediation Panel for Workers

Hoping to close a contentious chapter in the history of Koreatown, community leaders announced Wednesday the formation of a mediation and arbitration panel to handle disputes between restaurant owners and their workers.

“We are making history,” said Young-Seok Suh, president of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles, whose office played a key role in bringing the feuding sides to the table. Suh said he hopes the mediation panel will usher in an era of respect and cooperation after much publicized demonstrations and legal action.

Members of the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates and the Korean Restaurant Owners Assn. have been fighting for years over wages and working conditions.

The worker advocates group has portrayed restaurant owners as exploiters who ignore laws protecting employees. Restaurant owners have characterized the workers’ advocates as troublemakers, interested mostly in staging demonstrations to hurt business.

An estimated 280 Koreatown restaurants employ 2000 workers--70% Korean and Korean American, with the rest mostly Latinos.

The Rev. Hyun-Seung Yang, who was elected chairman of the seven-member panel Wednesday, said the agreement is the culmination of six months of delicate and, at times, exasperating negotiations between first generation immigrants and Korean Americans in their 20s and 30s who were born in South Korea but raised in the United States.

“I felt like a good sister-in-law who was listening to the family squabble,” said Yang, pastor of Shalom Mission Church who acted as a go-between in the negotiations. In traditional Korean society, where extended families often live under one roof, sisters-in-law play a key role in keeping family peace.

The Methodist minister said he often sang hymns to calm himself when negotiations became particularly difficult.

Jan J. Sunoo, western regional director of the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, offered Wednesday to provide technical support for the panelists.

“Throughout America, businessmen and working people are finding that the best way to solve their problems is through mediation and arbitration,” said Sunoo, a third generation Korean American. “With this step, the Korean community is keeping pace now with the most forward thinking in the labor and management community.”

Immediately after the noontime news conference, members and their guests ate lunch together, then held their first meeting.

The dispute between the two sides had hit rock bottom last fall, when former workers took a Korean restaurant owner to court, seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages.

Soon after, demonstrators picketed the Baek Hwa Jung restaurant for six weeks. Worker advocates had alleged that the restaurant owed two former employees, both Latino, more than $30,000 in back wages. Korean language newspapers sided with the owners, excoriating the high-profile tactics of demonstrators.

Under the agreement, disputes will be resolved by a panel of three. Each panel will first try mediation. If that fails, they will issue a ruling as arbitrators.

Each side submitted three names for membership on the panel. The seventh panelist, Yang, was agreed upon by both sides because of his history mediating disputes between worker advocates and restaurant owners.

After six months, officials said, the program will be evaluated.

Workers praised Sam Lee, a consultant for restaurant owners, for facilitating the talks.

“Sam Lee has been an ambassador,” said Tori Kim, an attorney for the worker advocates. “Sam Lee enabled both sides to talk more frankly and rationally.”

Dong-Ho Chon, president of the Korean Restaurant Owners Assn., said he hoped that the mediation panel will enable the Korean American community to keep its conflicts “from getting out to the mainstream.”

Last summer, a federal investigation of restaurants in the Koreatown neighborhood uncovered multiple violations of minimum wage and overtime laws. In a sweep of 43 restaurants--picked at random--investigators found that 200 workers had been underpaid by $250,000, according to the U.S. Labor Department. All but two of the restaurants had violated labor laws.

The showdown between workers and owners has been an education for the relatively young immigrant community. “This is an Americanization of Korean immigrants,” said Chase Rhee, an adjunct professor of international trade at Cal State L.A., and a member of the panel.

The Koreatown community, Rhee said, is learning and creating a Korean American culture.

“Koreans tend to become enemies when they disagree once,” he said. “This will be a good way to learn that people can agree to disagree.”