http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-newspaper1mar01,1,401377.storyWorkers at the Chinese Daily News were said to put in 12-hour days without breaks or overtime amid a culture of fear.
By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2008
One of the nation's largest Chinese-language newspapers was slapped with a federal court order to pay $5.2 million to past and current employees who were forced to work 12-hour days without breaks or overtime pay.
The Chinese Daily News, based in Los Angeles and New York, must pay more than $3.5 million in damages and penalties in addition to more than $1.5 million in interest to the workers, according to an order issued late Thursday by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in Los Angeles. Lawyers said Friday they learned about the ruling by e-mail.
"It's been a long fight, and it's a great victory," said Randall Renick, a plaintiffs' lawyer.
The Chinese Daily News will appeal, said Steven Atkinson, a lawyer with the newspaper's defense firm. He said he expected the verdict to be reversed.
Marshall's decision ends the trial stage of a battle that has gone on since 2004, when three former reporters filed a class-action lawsuit to halt the alleged abuses. They won a jury verdict last year.
They contended that they often were forced to work 12-hour shifts six days a week while writing two to five stories daily, without breaks for meals or rest, and were not permitted to submit to the company accurate records of time they worked.
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