The owner of La Hacienda Mexican restaurant filed a lawsuit Friday against five former workers who have taken part in protests at the restaurant over a wage dispute.
The lawsuit, filed by David Herrera, owner of the restaurant at 515 S. Park St., seeks a judgment declaring that none of the workers, who claim to be owed as much as $10,140 each in overdue wages, are owed any money at all.
The five workers, identified as Jose Yiyi Velasco and Francisco Garcia Garcia, of Madison, and Gustavo Roque Ferrer, Jose Luis Pioquinto and Luis Fernando Merino, of Fitchburg, claim that they were forced to sign out before they finished their shifts and worked long hours for which they were not paid overtime.
But the lawsuit maintains that all were paid in full.
"Some of the defendants have even signed releases for the U.S. Department of Labor acknowledging their understanding that they have been paid in full and cannot initiate legal proceedings contending they are owed wages for their employment with plaintiff La Hacienda," the lawsuit states.
The dispute has prompted pickets outside the restaurant that led Herrera to file for an injunction in Dane County Circuit Court barring protests at the restaurant by the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin and the Immigrant Workers Union. Circuit Judge Diane Nicks declined to issue the injunction.
According to the lawsuit, Herrera offered to resolve the dispute by submitting it to binding arbitration, but that offer was rejected.
Kate McCoy, who is on the Interfaith Coalition's board of directors, said the group had not seen the lawsuit on Friday and could not comment on it. Director Patrick Hickey was out of town, she said.