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.”






