Picket Line Outside of Silver Palace Restaurant

Picket Line Outside of Silver Palace Restaurant

In this undated photograph, a group of demonstrators gather in front of the Silver Palace Restaurant. The crowd, dressed for warm weather, stands behind a line of wooden NYPD parade barricades as a police officer scans the crowd. The crowd waves small flags overhead and carries large signs written in both English and Chinese. A young child peers over a barricade to view a poster taped to its front, reading: “LET THE UNION LIVE.” Above the child, two large canvas banners unfurl facing the Silver Palace restaurant. Echoing the establishment’s white façade with red Chinese and English signage, the white banner in the center reads in large red block letters, “NO SLAVERY NO JUSTICE,” above similarly formatted Chinese characters. In front of the restaurant’s neon window sign, a megaphone-wielding man, sporting glasses and a black t-shirt, addresses the crowd. This photograph captures an example of Asian American activism and mutual aid at a pivotal moment in the 1990’s labor justice movement, while simultaneously bringing to light larger socioeconomic divisions within Chinatown between landlords, employers, and immigrant workers.

The Silver Palace Restaurant, once located at 50-52 Bowery, was the first unionized restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown.1 The 900-seat dim-sum restaurant opened its doors in 1976 within a building owned by Joseph Chu, a prolific landlord in Chinatown.2 Only three years later, exploitative labor practices and illegal wage theft at Silver palace prompted its employees to stage a walkout. In 1981, with the aid of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association (CSWA), the newly formed 318 Restaurant Workers’ Union succeeded in their negotiations with Silver Palace management and won the first union contract for restaurant workers in New York City’s Chinatown.3

This photograph, taken presumably for the Silver Palace story in CAAAV’s fall ’93 newsletter, shows a demonstration that would soon become a daily occurrence outside the dim-sum restaurant for much of 1993 and 1994. In the late summer of 1993, the Silver Palace employee’s hard-earned benefits from the 1981 union contract, such as fair wages, full tips, medical coverage, schedule autonomy, and paid sick and holiday leave, were at risk of termination by the restaurant’s management.4 Though the 318 Union organized nine good faith attempts to negotiate the proposed contract, Silver Palace management refused to agree to fair labor conditions; instead, the management violated federal labor laws by threatening to fire the employees on the union’s bargaining committee if they did not sign the exploitative contract by the end of August.5 On August 20th, the restaurant locked over 40 employees out of their restaurant and called NYPD to arrest the workers demanding withheld wages and holiday pay. The 1993 Lockout resulted in legal suits against the Silver Palace and a seven-month picket line, as seen in this photograph.6 The protracted struggle with Silver Palace’s management lasted until March 13, 1994, when the daily demonstration of over 600 protesters erupted in celebration of the restaurant workers victory.7

1 “Silver Palace Workers Fight Union-Busting.” CAAAV Voice: 5, 2. Fall 1993. pp. 8.
2 Rueb, Emily S. “New York City History, as Told by 50 Bowery,” New York Times. February 12, 2016.
3 Attush, John C. “Chinatown Lockout Defeated.” Against the Current: 51. July-August 1994. <https://againstthecurrent.org/atc051/p4626/>.
4 “Silver Palace Workers Fight Union-Busting.”
5 Ibid.
6 Lee, Josephine. “A Picket Line with History.” The Village Voice. January 22, 2006. <https://www.villagevoice.com/2002/01/22/a-picket-line-with-history/>.
7 Bragg, Rick. “A Seven Month Lockout Ends at Chinatown’s Only Unionized Restaurant.” New York Times. March 14, 1994. Section B, pp. 3; Lambert, Bruce. “NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: LOWER MANHATTAN; In Chinatown, A Food Fight.” New York Times. September 12, 1993. Section 13, pp. 8.

1993

Gray Danforth

This post was completed as coursework for “Bitter Melon: Race, Foodways, and Urbanisms of Asian America” at New York University, taught by Minju Bae.

Copyright is held by CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities.

Photograph

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