New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, announced settlements yesterday with Gristede's and Sloan's supermarkets in Manhattan and Duane Reade, the drug store chain. Under the agreements, delivery persons who worked at these stores will receive back wages. Mr. Spitzer and the National Employment Law Project had filed lawsuits charging the stores with minimum wage and overtime violations. The stores claimed that because they had outsourced the hiring of these employees, they were not liable for the labor law violations.
See Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, December 17, 2003