By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CENTRAL PARK — Several employees of the Boathouse Restaurant in Central Park have been surreptitiously tape recording their bosses to document alleged threats made against them because of their efforts to organize a union, according to the New York Daily News.
Restaurant owner Dean Poll can reportedly be heard on several of the tapes telling his employees that he would "go out of business" if they voted for a union, according to the News.
"These tapes and transcripts provide irrefutable proof that the Boathouse Restaurant has repeatedly violated federal labor laws," Peter Ward, president of Local 6 of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, told the News.
On Tuesday, Poll fired 16 employees that supported the union campaign, according to the News.
"They told us we were terminated because they have a new policy of bringing in agency workers," Francisco Labayen, a banquet waiter who recorded Poll with a small hand-held recorder, told the paper.
The restaurant typically employs 100 workers during the winter season and as many as 200 during the summer months, which Poll used as justification for this week’s firings, according to the News.
"This is the slow season," Poll told the paper. "Those people weren't full-time employees anyway. I only need 14 full-time banquet waiters this time of year."
Poll, whose restaurant pulls in $18 million per year, has a history of labor problems, the paper reported. In 2010, his license to take over Tavern on the Green was revoked after he failed to come to an agreement with the union.
Local 6 responded to the recent firings by petitioning on Thursday for a union to the National Labor Relations Board. Ward hoped to provide the labor board with the opportunity to listen to the tapes and sanction Poll for his unfair labor practices, the News reported.
Poll did not immediately return calls for comment by DNAinfo.
