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New York State officials announced on Tuesday that they had shut down the Arthur Avenue Bakery — a Bronx institution celebrated for its cannoli and crusty bread — because of what they called widespread violations of minimum wage, overtime and workers’ compensation laws.
M. Patricia Smith, the state labor commissioner, said that new employees were often forced to work their first week without pay. She said that paychecks often bounced and that some workers complained about not being paid for 5 to 10 weeks.
“This is the first time I remember that we went in with the object of closing a business down,” Ms. Smith said in a telephone interview. “The employer was so abusive that we actually made the determination that it would be better for workers to lose their jobs than to continue working there.”
Ms. Smith said that some of the bakery’s 15 or so employees worked 12-hour days for $50 a day, amounting to $4.15 an hour, far less than the state’s $7.15-an-hour minimum wage. She said there was rapid employee turnover because many workers quit after a few weeks in frustration over not being paid properly.
Officials from the State Workers’ Compensation Board said that on Monday night they issued a stop-work order because the bakery, which is celebrating its 50th year, had carried no workers’ compensation insurance for employees for more than a year. State officials said that they did not know how long the abuses had gone on, and that many employees were afraid to report violations.
State officials said that the bakery owed $140,000 in back pay for various wage violations and $37,500 in penalties for not having workers’ compensation insurance. If those reparations are made, the bakery can reopen. Read more..
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