A class lawsuit was filed last week in Brooklyn Federal Court against a Hindu temple in Flushing for violation of federal and state labor laws.

According to the complaint filed by Lakshmynarayanan, a cook at the temple, his fellow cooks and priests are routinely compelled to work more than 65 hours, six days a week during normal weeks, and considerably longer hours during festival times, without being paid overtime.

The action was brought by New York attorney Krishnan Chittur on behalf of a class of all temple cooks and priests, and named the temple chief cook, Madhusudhan Rao, and acting president, Uma Mysorekar, as defendants.

The 10-count complaint asserts claims for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Minimum Wages Act and Common Law Fraud, amongst others. The plaintiff seeks compensatory, liquidated and punitive damages and attorneys’ fees and expenses, and injunctive relief for the entire class. The fraud claim is based on assertions that defendants’ representatives in India routinely mislead potential employees by concealing material facts concerning the employment.

The Hindu Temple is one of the oldest Hindu temples in North America, open to the public for 13 hours a day on weekdays. During weekends and festivals, it is open for significantly longer hours. The temple gets nearly 4,000 to 5,000 devotees and visitors every week and the number exceeds 10,000 during festivals. The temple’s gross revenues reportedly exceed $2 million annually. In large part, these revenues are generated through the efforts of cooks and priests who work throughout the year. The latest lawsuit follows an earlier case filed by Chittur against the temple to conduct elections to the governing body.

The temple cooks are religiously qualified and specially trained to prepare naivedyam (cooked offerings) for daily rituals as well as special prasadams (pilgrimages) of various kinds for Hindu festivals. Such naivedyam is offered twice every day. Moreover, large quantities of prasadams are distributed to devotees on weekends and festivals. In addition, the temple also undertakes catering for private functions.

Most temple cooks and priests, Chittur said, are new immigrants to the United States and therefore are unaware of labor laws and “very vulnerable to these oppressive employment conditions and abusive conduct.” They are constantly intimidated with verbal abuse and instant dismissal, he added in his complaint.

Chittur said that to squelch any possible dissent, defendants routinely recruit employees only for short term contracts, one or two years. They discourage employees from fraternizing with devotees or otherwise having a social life so as to preclude the possibility of dissent. Not surprisingly, the temple has a very high turnover of cooks and priests.

The lawsuit also asserts that although the temple is contractually obligated to bear the airfare to and from India, defendants’ representatives in India routinely collect 50,000 rupees [about 1,150 dollars] from potential employees toward such airfare under false pretenses. “No reason exists for any religious organization to function as a sweatshop or to indulge in such exploitative labor conditions, especially where the organization is well-established and collecting millions of dollars regularly,” said Chittur.

Mysorekar refused to comment on the matter, saying, “I am unaware of the case.”