Workers' Dignity has launched a boycott of Vitos' Ristorante and Wine Bar at 1i812 Hayes St, Nashville, TN until Vito Randazzo pays his former dishwasher the unpaid wages he owes. Vito Randazzo wrote a letter December 12, 2010, admitting that he owed Bernardino Ruiz $10,700 in unpaid wages after underpaying the 64-year-old for nearly a year at Randazzo’s previous restaurant, Caesar’s Bistro. Bernardino had worked at Caesar’s Bistro since 1995 and says his wages were never withheld when Caesar Randazzo was the owner. When his son, Vito, took over the business in 2010, he immediately began to withhold money from Bernardino’s checks, paying him substantially below the federal minimum wage. “We are not begging for alms,” explains Bernardino’s wife Esperanza. “My husband worked six and seven-day weeks and the only thing we ever asked for was just compensation.”

Since Caesar’s Bistro closed in January 2011, Workers’ Dignity has tried repeatedly to negotiate a resolution of the wage theft. When a delegation of community members visited Mr. Randazzo’s home last December, he again admitted to owing Bernardino $10,700 and handed a miserly $40 to Esperanza. “What kind of person financially destroys innocent people and then insults them with a couple twenty-dollar bills, Esperanza responded. “We’re not trash, we’re human beings, and we are not stopping until you pay what you owe.”

Although Mr. Randazzo pleads poverty, he told the Nashville Business Journal that he and business partners Jerome Kline and Mark Urquhart opened the upscale Vito’s Ristorante and Wine Bar with $80,000 in startup investments in August 2011. Meanwhile, Bernardino and his wife Esperanza have suffered tremendous financial hardship. For more than a year, they have had to choose between eating meals and purchasing needed medications while waiting for Mr. Randazzo to do the right thing and pay the wages he had stolen. Often, they are forced to disconnect their phone and other utilities for lack of funds.

Workers' Dignity's launch of the boycott coincides with a federal lawsuit by Bernardino Ruiz alleging repeated unlawful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Workers' Dignity is a Nashville-based membership organization with the mission to empower low-wage workers to act collectively for economic justice by promoting education, leadership development, community outreach, and collaboration with strategic allies. Through its labor rights workshops and subsequent actions, including public vigils and legal actions, the organization has recovered more than $60,000 in unpaid wages for 30 workers since its founding in April 2010.