Chinese newspaper settles lawsuit
Print Edition
THE Chinese Daily News is to pay US$7.8 million to settle a 2004 lawsuit that claimed it cheated more than 200 workers out of overtime pay.
The lawsuit said the largest-circulating Chinese-language paper in the United States forced reporters, sales and production staff and even delivery drivers to work long hours and six-day weeks without overtime pay, meals or rest breaks. The paper also denied workers proper holiday pay, it said.
The Chinese Daily News, with a readership of about 120,000, is based in Monterey Park, an eastern Los Angeles suburb with a large Asian-American population that swelled in the 1980s with an influx of immigrants from Taiwan.
The paper is one of several that serve a large and diverse Asian population throughout the San Gabriel Valley.
Both sides reached a settlement last year. But it was only approved by a judge last month.
Checks are expected to start going out next week, said Randy Renick, an attorney for the workers. Employees will receive anywhere from about US$10,000 to US$100,000 depending on their jobs, how long they were employed and how much overtime they chalked up.
“My feeling is pretty mixed. It came so late. This lawsuit last for more than 12 years,” said Lynn Wang, who worked for the paper for 18 years.
She was fired in 2005 after giving a deposition for the lawsuit. “They terminated me as an example to other workers, make everybody scared,” she said.
Wang said she and other reporters often worked 13 to 17 hours at a stretch. “Taiwan has an election, all the reporters have to stay up all night because of the time difference, and no overtime,” she said. Employees also had to attend late-night meetings that lasted until 1am, she said.
Many staff were recent immigrants who didn’t know their employment rights, Wang said.
The newspaper didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement. As of now, the paper’s wage and hour policies “are fully compliant with California and federal law,” said Yi-Chin Ho, an attorney who represented the paper.
The newspaper is owned by United Daily News Group of Taiwan, which publishes more than a dozen papers around the world.
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