Yuh-Line Niou the ‘fake progressive' & Pro-Palestinian Running for Congress Stabs her Fellow Chinese Constituents in the Back

 

Chinatown restaurant and home-aid workers gathered outside Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou’s office Wednesday, chanting “Yuh-Line Niou, Shame On You!” and calling on the woke Democrat to drop her bid in the crowded 10th Congressional District race. 

The immigrant workers say Niou (D-Lower Manhattan), who has billed herself as a champion of the working class, is a “fake progressive” who sides with exploitative “sweatshop bosses” over community members.

“I am standing out against Yuh-Line for selling out workers, for having the gall to then run for Congress,” Vincent Cao, a former employee at the now-shuttered eatery Joy Luck Palace, said at the rally. 

“Wage theft is rampant today because people like Yuh-Line Niou look the other way.”

Cao and his colleagues were awarded $1 million in back pay from a lawsuit they won in 2019 against Joy Luck Palace after the Chinatown restaurant shuttered. The workers say they still haven’t been paid by their bosses. And they think that Niou’s close relationship with Patrick Mock, their old boss, and the three other co-owners, disqualifies her from the race.

“Niou actually presented a ‘Community Hero’ award to my sweatshop boss, the boss that owes me years of wages,” Cao alleged.

The rally Wednesday in Chinatown outside the pol’s office was attended by around 100 people and was organized by the Youth Against Sweatshops and Chinese Staff & Workers Association. The two local groups are demanding the Niou withdraw her bid for Congress and get workers the money they are owed. The groups say despite being their representative in Albany, Niou has done nothing to help them since taking office.

“She sold out the community,” organizer Sarah Ahn told The Post. “We are urging people not to vote for her, not to be fooled by a fake progressive.”

Ahn alleged that so-called “sweatshop bosses” in Chinatown are able to exploit workers because they have the approval and ear of Niou, who has been endorsed by the left-wing Working Families Party.

“Its such a deep hypocrisy,” the activist said. “We know a lot of politicians are hypocritical, but it’s really destructive to have the new face of progressivism do this.”

Also in attendance at the rally Wednesday were home-care workers for the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), which Chinatown community members have been accusing for years of scheduling workers for 24-hour home-care shifts but paying only employees for 13 hours of work.

“Yuh-Line is always talking about how she’ll help us end the 24-hour workday. But behind the scenes, she is stabbing us in the back!” Lai Yee Chan, a CPC home attendant who has worked years of 24-hour shifts, said at the rally.

“24-hour shifts have destroyed my body and my family. They are torture!”

Another speaker at the rally, Kathy Lu, said Niou’s claim that she represents Asian women rings hollow when the lefty politician doesn’t support the most vulnerable Asian women in her own community

“Many of us young people looked to you, Yuh-Line, a woman of color who shed tears for the suffering of immigrants, who claims to stand with working people. But you have lied and misled us,” Lu said.

“While you cry on TV about how Asians are poor, you lie and attempt to silence Chinese immigrant workers who are actually fighting to get back the wages that their bosses stole from them. You smear the home care workers who are fighting to end the 24-hr workdays” she continued, garnering cheers from the other protesters.

Niou’s campaign responded: “Yuh-Line has always stood with workers — on the picket lines, in the legislature, and now as a candidate for Congress” and said she was “a leading voice since 2017 for the end of the 24-hour workday.”

“Yuh-Line will continue to use her voice and coalition building to advocate for all workers,” the campaign said.

Mock did not return a message seeking comment.

Wednesday’s rally wasn’t the first time Niou has been accused of hypocrisy.

The state lawmaker, who has pushed for cutting police funding, first moved to the district she is seeking to represent in Congress because “safety issues” near “the projects” in Harlem prompted her to move in with her tech-bro then-fiancé in the Financial District, The Post exclusively reported in June. 

The newly-drawn congressional district that she is hoping to represent includes almost all of Lower Manhattan, including Chinatown, as well as swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn.

Ahn encouraged residents in the newly-drawn district not to vote for Niou in the Aug. 23 Democratic Primary, saying it’s “dangerous” to have her advance to a national position. 

“On paper she has a platform for working people, but she very much uses the power she has to further exploit the community.”