Passionate protestors held a rally against wage theft at Crazy Buffet at 830 E. El Camino Real in Sunnyvale on March 4.
The group, led by self-described “wage theft” victim Raymond Sullivan Blum, shouted chants such as “Si se puede” and “Crazy Buffet, it’s time to pay.”
Protesters were handing out fliers that read, “Be aware! Crazy Buffet Commits Wage Theft.” Some prospective Crazy Buffet patrons left as a result of the interaction.
According to the flier, the buffet restaurant has been accused of withholding wages from its workers for years, totaling to more than $1 million.
“Wage theft is a national problem that affects workers in industries ranging from construction to sales, from elderly disabled care to food services, such as in restaurants like Crazy Buffet,” Blum said. “The average low-wage worker loses 15 percent of his or her wages to wage theft each year.”
Wage theft is categorized as not paying employees, writing checks that bounce, not providing overtime compensation and forbidding breaks, among other violations, according to Ruth Silver Taube, adjunct professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and supervising attorney of the Workers’ Rights Clinic at the Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center.
Though the judgments have been made against the restaurant by Santa Clara County Superior Court, many workers have only seen a fraction of the total money owed, if any at all, according to protestors.
“There needs to be institutional change at the government level to ensure that businesses that contract with the county have their contracts suspended or revoked if they commit wage theft,” Blum said.
The first judgment came at the end of 2007. Since then, there have been 20 more judgments against the restaurant by 10 different employees, according to Taube.
The protest was organized by the Santa Clara Wage Theft Coalition, a local group founded by Taube in 2013.
Among the 13 organizations backing the coalition are Asian Americans for Community Involvement, Working Partnerships USA, and Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network.
“Wage theft hurts children and families,” Taube said. “We need to see consequences.”
The protest was held to turn patrons away from the restaurant and to demand action. Taube also said that they aim to seek action from the Sunnyvale City Council to press for ways to prohibit wage theft.
According to wagetheft.org, San Francisco passed legislation to combat wage theft in 2004. It is the only city in the state that has been successful in passing such an ordinance. Los Angeles is working on passing an ordinance that would hold businesses responsible for wage theft and would be enforced by the police, according to the website.
Taube stressed that the Wage Theft Coalition is simply looking for some type of compensation for workers, whether it is through a payment plan or all at once.
“People are living out of their cars or homeless because of wage theft,” she said. “We cannot live in a county where this happens.”
When asked for comment, employees at Crazy Buffet said they didn’t know anything about the situation. According to a hostess who would not provide her name, the owner of the restaurant was in Los Angeles, and there was no word when he would be back and “no way to contact him.”
Blum said victims of wage theft are in a potentially dire situation.
“This is income that is so tightly bound to an individual’s or a family’s chance at survival,” he said. ” They have everything to lose.”
