National Mobilization Against Sweatshops

Workers at Swagat Restaurant worked 80 hours per week making as little as $3.33/hour. Celebrated chef and owners Lala Sharma and Abishek Sharma pressured them to work harder and faster and owe them more than $1,000,000.00!

Recently, because workers are organizing and successfully rallying the community to support a boycott of their businesses until they pay workers what they owe, the Sharma’s retaliated against the workers, stripping them of their delivery work and cutting their work hours, hiring new workers to do their work. 

“We make the restaurants run, without us, they are nothing. They want to keep workers

poor while we raise them up? We say no!” – Swagat worker Francisco de Dios

For sweatshops like Swagat, wage theft is the normal way of doing business because weak labor laws allow them to easily hide their assets so workers are unable to collect a penny of what they’re owed, even when they win their case. 

That’s why we need the SWEAT Bill to give all workers the tools to recover their stolen wages and hold criminal bosses accountable! But the NYC Hospitality Alliance blocks SWEAT from passing, encouraging Lala and Abishek Sharma and other scofflaw bosses to steal from workers year after year.

Join the picket Wednesdays at 6pm at 411A Amsterdam Avenue between West 79th and 80th Streets, and: 

• Demand Lala & Abishek Sharma guarantee workers 40 hours of work per week and reinstate workers organizing to their delivery jobs

• Boycott Swagat (411A Amsterdam) and the owners’ other restaurants Badshah-to-go (80 Nassau), Madam Ji (154 Bleecker), Rang (11-03 44th Ave., Long Island City) until their workers are paid all their stolen wages, overtime, and tips
• Demand the Hospitality Alliance stop protecting racist wage theft bosses and support SWEAT (A.46/S.1977)