South Salt Lake’s Chinatown Supermarket is facing a federal lawsuit, accused by the U.S. Department of Labor of obstructing an investigation into the store’s labor practices.
In a suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in Utah, the agency and its head, Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh, allege the supermarket violated sections of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The department, in its court filing, accused the store at 3390 S. State St. of interfering with an investigation into employees’ work hours, and of not handing over timecard records.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction, to order the supermarket and its representatives that they can’t tell employees not to speak with investigators, or threaten firing or other retaliation, or tamper with time and payroll records.
When asked to comment, Elyas Raigne, the manager of Salt Lake Chinatown, the massive shopping center that houses the supermarket, declined on Tuesday. He said the market is still looking for a lawyer.
According to the lawsuit, the department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) started an investigation into the supermarket’s pay practices on March 3. An investigator called the market over the phone, and was referred to Raigne as the point of contact. That same day, the investigator sent an email to Raigne, to arrange an appointment to visit the store.
Two days later, the lawsuit says, someone representing the supermarket (the Labor Department doesn’t say who) met with employees and “instructed them to tell WHD that no employees work more than 40 hours a week.” The market’s representative also asked employees to sign “non-compete, non-solicitation and confidentiality agreement,” the lawsuit said.
On March 8, an investigator inspected the premises of the market and took a photo of the time clock and timecards. The investigator said employees seemed “anxious and reluctant to speak with him,” according to the lawsuit.
The next day, the lawsuit said, another investigator was told by Sandy So, who represented the market, that the market didn’t use timecards.
Six WHD investigators returned to the market on March 11, the lawsuit said. According to the filing, the employees again “appeared anxious and reluctant to speak with them. Managers loitered nearby the interviews, within earshot.” When an investigator asked Raigne for the timekeeping records, he replied that he didn’t have access to them, and the owner “had been out of the country for six months,” the lawsuit said.
WHD investigators later learned, the lawsuit said, that the market had removed Spanish-speaking employees from their regular schedule on the days the investigators would be inspecting “to prevent WHD from speaking with those employees.”
The Chinatown Supermarket is owned by a private family. When The Tribune published a feature on the shopping center earlier this month, Raigne was the only point of contact; he said the owners wished to remain private.