One World Cuisine Restaurant Group Sued Again By Underpaid Workers

Somerville, MA - Sixteen Centro Presente organizers and local Somerville residents stood outside of Diva Indian Bistro on Friday evening to protest the restaurant's firing of one of their workers. Diva Indian Bistro is owned by One World Cuisine, a company that owns multiple restaurants in the Greater Boston Area. Seven workers were fired from these restaurants and are currently suing for $183,500 in unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, and minimum wage violations. Work was performed in Mumbai Chopstix, Cafe of India, Bukhara, and Diva.

The restaurants are all part of the One World Cuisine restaurant group, owned by Amrik S. Pabla. One World Cuisine declined to comment and directed questions to their attorney, John Lewis, who said, "I really can't talk about this case," and refused to comment further, saying the case was not "public record." He did confirm that he is the attorney representing the company.

Centro Presente claims that the process has been slower because Lewis has previously said that he does not represent the company as a whole. This is forcing the advocates to serve court papers individually to each of the three people with an ownership stake in One World Cuisine.

Patrick McDermott, a Centro Presente organizer, said that multiple demonstrations had occurred at Diva and Bukhara's in Jamaica Plain. Centro Presente is a state-wide membership based Latino immigrant organization that advocates for immigrant rights and for economic and social justice through the integration of community organizing, basic services, and leadership development. Through Centro Presente, the workers are organizing a public campaign to pressure One World Cuisine to pay them the wages they allege are owed. Greater Boston Legal Services attorney Audrey Richardson has been representing the seven workers.

Some of the workers reported to have worked several weeks with no pay. Most of the workers reported working more than 70 hours a week and being paid under minimum wage with no overtime pay.

Marcos Che Cucul worked for the now shutdown Cafe of India, where he was a dishwasher and prep cook. Originally from Guatemala, he said that he had been unsure of the minimum wage laws in Massachusetts. He said, "I worked for a year and a half from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. for six days a week. I wasn't paid for the entire month of October, and now that I know the minimum wage, I know I wasn't paid it or overtime. One night, I catered overnight and was given fifty dollars." Initially it was thought that One World Cuisine owed him just a thousand dollars, but current calculations have damages standing at $22,000.

The workers' campaign for justice has garnered a significant amount of community support. Davis Square resident Dave Burt was participating in the protest outside of Diva, and said," I came upon a protest here months ago and became interested. I'm in favor of a people-friendly environment where workers aren't cheated." He paused to yell, "Diva, Diva, pay your workers!" and turned back to finish, "You know, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Stuff like this is happening everywhere."

Community organizations Occupy Somerville, Red Horizon, Community In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Jobs for Somerville were present at an organizing meeting at Centro Presente headquarters on Saturday. David Grosser, of CISPES, said that the Tufts University Spanish Department cancelled its holiday party at Diva Indian Bistro as a result of the allegations. The coalitions are hoping to get consensus from workers on speaking with Somerville City Councilors about a resolution highlighting the labor dispute and preventing future wage violations. The resolution was originally proposed by SEIU Local 888. Centro Presente Director Patricia Montes said, "We want an all encompassing resolution so this case can be talked about in the future when labor exploitation arises."

One World Cuisine was also sued in 2010 by two Honduran workers for minimum wage violations. McDermott said, "We called One World Cuisine and they didn't want to pay the $16,000 they owed the workers who had worked for Mumbai Chopstix and Mantra. After outreach to press and seeing the newspapers write about it, they ended up paying the workers. It never went to court."