Haredi Kosher Food Producer Refuses To Pay $260,000 In Back Wages To Fired Workers

A Williamsburg kosher food company is locked in a battle with former workers who charge they were stiffed out of overtime pay - and then fired when they complained. National Labor Relations Board investigators found that Flaum Appetizing Corp. illegally booted the workers, and ordered the company to cough up around $260,000 in back pay. But owner Moshe Grunhut has refused to comply - saying he won't pay the workers – many of who worked at Flaum for as much as a decade – because they're undocumented immigrants.

Kosher business refuses to pay $260,000 in back wages to fired workers
BY Izabela Rutkowski and Erin Durkin • NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A Williamsburg kosher food company is locked in a battle with former workers who charge they were stiffed out of overtime pay - and then fired when they complained.

National Labor Relations Board investigators found that Flaum Appetizing Corp. illegally booted the workers, and ordered the company to cough up around $260,000 in back pay. But owner Moshe Grunhut has refused to comply - saying he won't pay the workers because they're undocumented immigrants.

The fired employees said they spent years working as much as 80 hours a week for minimum wage with no overtime, for bosses who often peppered them with verbal abuse.

"I worked 11 years for that company and I never received a dollar of overtime or one holiday or one sick day, nothing," said Gustino Romero, 32, of Bushwick. "I worked from 7 in the morning until 10 or 11 at night. ... We always asked for [overtime], but they said no."

Maria Corona, 36, of Williamsburg, said frequent insults from her boss made the situation worse.

"The manager called us cockroaches, tarantulas, all kinds of offensive names," she said. "The truth is we were unfairly exploited."

When the workers tried to form a union and went on a brief strike in 2008, management ordered them off the Flaum premises - a move the National Labor Relations Board ruled was illegal retaliation.

Grunhut said he always paid required overtime and insisted he told the workers not to come back because he discovered they were in the U.S. illegally.

"I treat my workers with respect and dignity," he said, blaming union organizers for stirring up the controversy.

He's asking the NLRB to let him off the hook for the back pay, and the two sides are scheduled to appear before the board again Dec. 8.

"There was no question regarding immigration status for over a decade as workers were sweating every day to make and distribute his product," said Daniel Gross, executive director of Brandworkers International, an advocacy group backing the workers.

Meanwhile, the workers have conducted protests at kosher supermarkets where Flaum's pickles, hummus other products are sold. They've also enlisted an Orthodox Jewish group to exert pressure on Grunhut.

"We can't just focus on ritual and ignore the ethical side," said Ari Hart, co-founder of the group Uri L'Tzedek, which translates as Awaken to Justice.

"The Torah talks in multiple places about how it's really important to pay a worker the worker's full wages and respect a worker," Hart said.

Related Posts : 1, 2, 3.

[Hat Tip: critical minyan.]

Comments

[Aleksandr Sigalov]

Mr. Ovadia had made it very clear that these workers are goyim and they only exist to serve Jews.

So how dare they demand any money from God himself ?!?

[Barry]

It never ceases. These misfits think they own the world and non-Jews are their slaves. This maggot should be put in jail, and made to stay there until he pays his people that he owes money to.
Then the Gov't should assess him triple damages for wantonly not paying, and spitting in the face of the verdit.
When will our crazy people learn, that the law of the land must prevail. These shysters get in bed with the Rabbis, and between both they make a Chilull Hashem, mking wrong right, evil good, and the hell with true Torah values, after all we are the Ravs, and we interpret the Torah. What sked views these maggots have.
This sorry piece of garbage knew when he hired them they were illegal, and now he just want san out.
We the people codntinue to abet this piece of garbage by buying his adulterated dproducts. Adulterated with a Chilul Hashem.

[Alter Kocker]

Take Moshe Grunhut and toss him in jail. Seize his assets, liquidate them and pay his workers. Let this schmuck, hiding behind his holier than thou Judaism pay for his crime, and let him stand as an example to those who feel Jews are superior and goyim are made to serve.

That attitude is pervasive and must be stamped out.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

The gemara Shabbos tells us that after 120 years the first question that a person is asked is:

"נשאת ונתת באמונה" - "Have you always been honest in your business dealings?" We learn from this how important it is to always be a Jew—not only when we go to shul and learn Torah but in the business world as well. Our job is to be a 24-hour Jew. This gemara is the theme for our mitzvah fair unit.

No speaky Hebrew so fuck 'em.

Yah!

[Isa]

Can any body tell me what Grunhut is:
e.g. Satmir, Chabad etc?

[Mr. Apikoros]

Since his name is Grunhut (Greenhat) he certainly isn't ChaBAD.

[A. Nuran]

OK, I guess I misintereted Leviticus 19:13 in that other post. If I really understood the higher Kabbalistic meaning I would understand that it there was a hidden extension "The wages of the hireling shall not stay with thee until morning. Thou shalt deposit them immediately in thy personal account, and verily shalt thou try to hide the paper trail."

[WoolSilkCotton]

Is there any remaining ethnic group out there that hasn't learned yet that frumma yidden will screw them?

[Yanik]

ISA MOSHE GRUNHUT lives in williamsburg he is a ganoff thief and belongs to the satmar kehilla