FLUSHING, NEW YORK, December 1, 2005: A fierce legal battle is being fought between members of the Hindu Temple Society, who worship at the Ganesh Temple on Bowne Street in Flushing. The Hindu Temple Society of North America has scored a victory in its battle against a group of members who are seeking to replace its current leaders with a new group of elected trustees. A temple cook, who claimed in a lawsuit that he was exploited, has withdrawn his name from the suit, although his former attorney says the decision may have been coerced. The move leaves Krishnan Chittur, the attorney who filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of the cook and other workers at the Flushing temple, without a plaintiff in his case. Chittur is also representing a group of six temple members who want to replace the Flushing temple’s board of trustees with a leadership body elected by the congregation. Federal Judge Victor Pohorelsky interviewed the cook for more than an hour before determining that he had withdrawn from the lawsuit of his own volition, Green said.
The class action lawsuit was filed in federal court on July 14th, with Lakshminarayanan as its sole signatory. It claims the temple’s cooks and priests, who were brought over from India under religious worker visas, were forced to work long hours without overtime pay. According to Chittur, this is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York’s labor laws. The lawsuit also accuses the temple of obtaining religious worker visas for its cooks under the pretext that they would only be performing religious duties such as preparing cooked offerings and food for religious festivals. Chittur says the cooks in fact function as ordinary restaurant cooks at the temple’s canteen and for private catering assignments outside the temple’s premises. The temple’s lawyers counter that the labor laws cited in the lawsuit cover commercial, not religious workers; and that although anyone can eat at the canteen, it is difficult to find and passersby are unlikely to know of its existence, unless they are worshipping at the temple. In addition, the temple’s lawyers say Lakshminarayanan and other cooks are not exploited, as they receive annual salaries of $35,000 to $50,000 as well as housing and four weeks’ vacation per year.