Local Law Firms Home > Workers' Compensation News > Immigrants Get $577,000 in Workers' Compensation A workers' compensation and wrongful termination dispute that began at Flaum Appetizing in 2007 in Brooklyn, New York has finally been settled for $577,000. Flaum is a manufacturer and distributor of hummus and kosher food in Brooklyn. Sixteen workers at the plant claimed they were not paid enough for work done in overtime. They demanded time and a half for overtime pay according to federal and state laws. The company refused and instead fired the workers who had demanded more pay. Moshe Grunhut, owner of Flaum Appetizing, claimed the workers walked out on their own demanding more pay. He added that they were working on trucks that moved across state lines so the NY State overtime laws did not apply. When Flaum replaced the workers who had walked out, they filed suit in Manhattan federal court and topped it off with a complaint to the NLRB. The lawsuit and complaint alleged that working conditions had been abysmal at Flaum for over a decade. Workers had been made to work 80 hour weeks without overtime and sometimes without minimum wage. Workers had been subject to anti-immigrant insults, abuse and discrimination at the management's hands. When the workers protested against all this, seventeen were fired without due cause. When the NLRB ruled against Flaum earlier this year, the company resisted paying the amount by charging that the immigrants did not have proper documentation to work in the US. The workers then gained support from two unlikely sources, in the form of Orthodox Jewish group Uri L’Tzedek and Focus on the Food Chain, a coalition formed to protect food workers' rights. The two organizations joined hands and ran a campaign against Flaum. They claim to have persuaded over 120 NYC grocery store outlets to stop selling Flaum products. The $577,000 settlement finally agreed to after 18 months of picketing and bad PR brings to an end both the federal case and the NLRB litigation over the retaliatory firings.
|