When a court ruled on the October 22nd that Manhattan Chinatown’s Saigon Grill restaurant chain must pay 36 Chinese deliverymen a total of $4.6 million in lost wages and damages, it sent a shockwave of dismay and anxiety through the Chinese restaurant industry. With the economic crisis already spelling a downturn in business, many restaurant proprietors worry that they will not be able to weather the raise in wages that this decision will likely cause.

In the wake of the financial and credit crises and in the march toward the winter months, Chinese restaurateurs are finding their stream of patrons dwindling and profits decreasing. Some restaurants have been forced to lay off cooks, waiters and deliverymen; remaining employees find their workload increasing and their hours lengthening, while pay is not necessary increasing to compensate.

It is common practice in Chinatown restaurants to pay wait staff and deliverymen a base of sum of only several hundred dollars per month: their main income comes from tips, and when the base sum and tips together do not meet state minimum wage, employers will supply extra pay to make up the difference.

Wing Lam, executive director of the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, says that the Saigon Grill decision clearly shows that restaurant proprietors must pay their staff a base sum equaling at least minimum wage, no matter how much money they make on tips. But restaurateurs object, saying that doing so would mean doubling the wages of deliverymen, making them some of the highest-paid members of the staff at $5,000 a month. Such an increase in costs would be difficult to bear.

Some restaurant owners argue that minimum wage should mean the minimum amount of money an employee makes working for a given employer, and although tips are not paid by employers, they are nonetheless benefits that employees gain from working for those employers, and should thus be included in the calculation of minimum wage and not considered a separate stream of income.

To avoid wage disputes, the Fujianese community in Manhattan has simply adopted a no-tip system: employers instead provide full wages to their staff. Employers hope that this strategy will appear to lower meal prices, attracting more patrons to their restaurants and increasing profits. Many Chinese take-out restaurants also have an explicit “free delivery” policy, paying deliverymen in full and requiring them not to accept tips.

Some Chinatown restaurant proprietors say that they have no choice but to keep their anger over labor unions to themselves: bringing their feelings out into the open would be courting disaster, they say. Some also say that they have no objection to wait staff or deliverymen earning more than minimum wage, but if the restaurant is forced to close because of higher costs, employees would lose their jobs, which would make them worse off than they were in the beginning.

Restaurant owners say that in the wintertime of America’s economy, both labor and management should respect the law and weather these troubles side by side.