Two Tampa restaurants violated pay laws. They shorted cooks and dishwashers $102,000
Two restaurants in the Tampa area Sa Ri One chain paid $102,894 in back pay after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found a Fair Labor Standards Act violation, Labor announced.
That money went to 11 workers at Sa Ri One Korean Restaurant and Sa Ri One Grill, $9,354 per employee.
State records list Ji Yeoun Lee as a director of each restaurant, which are registered as “Sarione Restaurant” and “Sarione Grille.” The person answering the phone at Sa Ri One Restaurant, for which Lee is the only listed officer or director, insisted there was no person by that name there.
Labor said a Wage and Hour Division investigation found that the Sa Ri One restaurants misclassified 11 cooks and dishwashers as exempt from overtime pay, then paid them fixed salaries twice a month, no matter how many hours they worked. And, as is common in these cases, the employer didn’t record the number of hours the employees worked.
“Employers must understand that paying workers a fixed salary does not automatically excuse them from paying overtime,” Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff said in a statement. “Unless a specific exemption applies, even workers paid on a salary basis must be paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a week. The essential workers in this case deserve to be paid every cent they have earned.”
The Wage and Hour complaint section of the Department of Labor website contains information on how to file a complaint. Miami’s Wage and Hour Division office can be reached at 305-598-6607.
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 8:52 AM with the headline "Two Tampa restaurants violated pay laws. They shorted cooks and dishwashers $102,000."
