UPDATED: 8:23 am CDT August 23, 2007
MADISON, Wis. -- A wage dispute involving some Hispanic workers and a high-profile Mexican restaurant could be headed back to court.
The lawyer for La Hacienda in Madison said that on Thursday he will file a court action to get a judge to settle a dispute that has spilled onto the streets.
Picket lines at the restaurant went up again Wednesday over the noon hour due to a dispute about wages.
Through a lawyer, La Hacienda's owner denied any wrongdoing. The restaurant is pursuing more court action, including a second temporary restraining order.
On and off since early July, the restaurant and its noon-hour customers have heard chants from demonstrators protesting the business at 515 South Park St.
About 25 people resumed their wage dispute boycott of the business on Wednesday, protesting this time under the watchful eye of private security guards and city police.
Late last week a local judge threw out a temporary restraining order the business wanted, but some ground rules were laid anyway.
Police officers told protest organizers to stay clear of customers coming into the parking lot and eating on the patio, and the protesters agreed.
Wednesday was the sixth time the Workers' Rights Center Inc. and the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin have held noon-hour protests at La Hacienda, and they seem to be keeping customers away temporarily, WISC-TV reported.
The groups claim that five former workers, all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, are owed $3,000 to $11,000 each for work they never got paid for. They allegedly were told to clock out and keep working.
"I wouldn't say they're being blackmailed, but they have been kind of forced to write the hours they wanted down or they wouldn't have a job," said Saul Castillo, the board president for Workers Rights Center Inc.
During a phone call, WISC-TV could not get answers from the restaurant owner David Herrera or later find him at the restaurant. Workers said he was gone. But his attorney said that through the Workers' Rights Center, "the employees are making outrageous demands for back pay."
"There is an incredible manipulation and defamation against my client," said Victor Arellano, Herrera's attorney.
Arellano said that he and the owner "plan to file an action for a declaratory judgment" to stop what he called "this eternal nonsense."
One employee who has worked at the restaurant for 11 years said Wednesday that he had always been treated fairly but that making money now is tougher due to the protests.
"The money that we make hourly here for waiters is like $2.50 an hour so we depend on tips from customers. It's very low, so (it's) very and bad for our salary, too," said Jose Villegas, a waiter at the restaurant.
Villegas said he came to the country illegally but now has had permanent resident status for years.
He said he has always gotten paid, but the federal government said that in the past others have not.
Last year La Hacienda paid out nearly $40,000 in a wage dispute settlement to 14 restaurant workers, WISC-TV reported.