Tag Archives: wages

Cheerleading Leads the Team to a Victory

Something to cheer about

The employees who are expected to show the most enthusiasm and team spirit are the same individuals who maintain their positions at the bottom of the Oakland Raiders pay scale. Former Cheerleaders for the team initiated a class action lawsuit against the NFL for unfair payment of wages. Although a legal settlement was reached in early 2014, the Raiders Cheerleaders have only recently reaped the benefits. Read more

Subway Franchise Facing Lawsuit for Unpaid Overtime

A toasted lawsuit

A former Subway employee has filed a lawsuit in Washington D.C. against his former employer for unpaid overtime wages. Erwin Zambrano Moya claims that his employer created fictional workers and put some of his hours worked under these “other employees” to avoid paying the additional overtime wages. ” According to the complaint, the owner accomplished this, in part, by paying Moya as if he were multiple workers, thereby keeping the real Moya under 40 hours each week”. Moya stated that he worked up to 70 hours per week, and should have been paid time and a half for 30 of those hours worked. Half of the hours worked were recorded under Moya, and half under another fictional employee name.

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Not Just Another Hot Coffee Lawsuit

Not just hot coffee this time…

In the past, whenever McDonald’s is involved in a lawsuit, we usually expect it to be because of another victim of their hot coffee. Not this time, “McDonald’s workers in three states filed lawsuits against the fast-food chain this week, saying the company engages in a variety of practices to avoid paying them what they’re owed”. The states involved are California, Michigan, and New York; lawyers targeted McDonald’s because it is an industry leader. The suit mentions a variety of labor violations, which could potentially affect 30,000 employees. The lawsuit seeks back pay and other damages for the affected parties. Read More

Celebrity Chef Pays $5.25 Million in Confiscated Tips to Workers

A pile of delicious spaghetti (representative of but not actually Batali’s, though)

Celebrity chef Mario Batali has settled with his disgruntled workers over allegations he skimmed 4-5% of servers’ tips at the end of every night at his high-profile restaurants.  The employees claimed that they were not paid overtime when they worked for over 10 hours and that Batali took the tip money to pay the salaries of sommeliers at his other New York restaurants.  The settlement comes in the wake of an overhaul of New York wage laws, which one lawyer connected with the case said made the circumstances “ambiguous”.  Overall, tip-skimming is illegal, and restaurant owners need only follow the guidelines set by the New York legislature to avoid similar lawsuits.

I went to one of these restaurants a few years ago as part of a company morale type of thing at my old job.  The food was pretty good, but not exactly worth the money paid for it.  I guess it’s more about the name at the front of the restaurant than the meal itself.  But anyway, between 20 or so people, the bill turned out to be more than $1,000 with wine and whatnot, if I recall correctly, and probably more knowing my old boss.  A 20% tip on that would be $200, and 5% of that would be $10 going to Batali’s sommeliers.  It seems like a pittance to file a lawsuit over when you look at it localized like this, but compounded over however many hundreds of meals are served per day over five years and between at least eight restaurants, this number becomes astounding.  If the tip-skimming was truly as widespread as the plaintiffs alleged, Batali should be thankful that he only had to pay $5.25 million.

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