Delivery Workers Win $4.6 Mil Against Restaurant

October 22, 2008— -- Chanting "Justice is served!" and carrying signs proclaiming "Victory for All Delivery Workers" outside a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side Wednesday afternoon, Chinese delivery men celebrated the major legal triumph they won this week: $4.6 million against the restaurant which, a federal judge found, exploited their labor, garnished their wages, and fired them all for trying to fight back.

"We've been fighting for a long time for this, and today it finally comes," said Jianyun Chen, 42, through a translator.

"It will really help our families," added Bao Guo Xie, 40, who said he plans to send his share, over $143,000, back to his children in China so that they can attend school.

Chen and Xie are two of 36 delivery workers, all of whom are Chinese nationals, who united in a suit against the Saigon Grill restaurant company and its owners, saying they were denied minimum wages and overtime pay, forced to pay unlawful "fines" and kickbacks to the restaurants, required to work as many as seven days a week and 12 hours a day, and terminated when they came together to file a suit against the popular eatery.

After the workers were fired, the restaurant announced it would no longer offer customers delivery service, which had been heralded as extremely fast and efficient by local publications.

The delivery men alleged that the restaurant's owners, Simon and Michelle Nget, paid the workers just a couple dollars an hour, made them pay hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets if they were robbed while out on a delivery, and fined them up to $200 for things like letting a door slam or forgetting to have a customer sign a receipt.

At trial, the Ngets denied each allegation and said the delivery men worked far fewer hours than they claimed. Their attorney did not return calls from ABC News seeking comment .

On Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger of the United States District Court in Manhattan, released his order following a five day trial in June that heard the workers' testimonies and the restaurant's defense. Dolinger, calling the restaurant, "a very profitable enterprise that was able to pay rock-bottom wages," ruled "It was clearly the goal of defendants to minimize their labor costs and to keep a cowed staff in place."