By Stephen Stirling
The settlement comes more than a year after the man, a Korean immigrant identified only as “Mr. Jang” due to a confidentially agreement, filed suit against his former employers with the support of the Korean Workers Project in December 2005. After a year of negotiations, the church, which is not named due to the agreement, agreed to pay Mr. Jang a cash settlement, according to the Korean Workers Project.Mr. Jang, who has been living in the United States for more than a decade, said he originally began working for the church under the impression that it had good intentions. He said due to his low pay, he was unable to afford tuition at Long Island University for his son. Without any recourse at the time, he said, his son instead joined the military and is now serving in Iraq. “At first, I worked and sacrificed for the church because I thought they would sponsor me for a visa and help me out,” he said. “But when they fired me after five years of doing all that work for so little pay, I realized that the church was not trying to help me out – it was just using my labor instead. I knew something was not right and that this should never happen to anyone else.”Mr. Jang said he often worked more than 12 hours a day and seven days a week at the church, handling everything from driving duties to shoveling snow out of the church parking lot. Steven Choi, an attorney with the Korean Workers Project who represented Mr. Jang free of charge, said the hours Mr. Jang worked qualified him for overtime pay, but he was only paid a flat rate of $375 per week, which works out to less than New York minimum wage. Choi said he was glad justice was served in the case. “Even if you are a church, you must pay the proper minimum wage, overtime and spread-of-hours wages to your regular employees like janitors and secretaries,” he said. Reach reporter Stephen Stirling by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.
