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GUEST: Max Mariscal, former Assi Market worker, and organizer with KIWA

On Tuesday, Koreatown’s Assi Supermarket agreed to settle a class action lawsuit with former employees for just under a million and a half dollars. Former workers of Assi Supermarket, one of Koreatown’s largest community-owned businesses, cited management’s racial discrimination and unpaid overtime work as the reasons for the lawsuit. This is the latest news in a campaign for immigrant workers’ rights that has been ongoing since 2001 when employees first began talks of unionization. A workers’ vote to unionize in March 2002 resulted in a disputed tie thus delaying unionization. But workers were still able to organize. With the help of the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), former employees coordinated a four-year consumer boycott of Assi Supermarket on top of filing suit against the corporation. With the settlement of the suit, KIWA intends to lift the ban on the market.

For more information, visit www.kiwa.org.