A Florida restaurant shorted waiters, waitresses, cooks and others of $222,000 in pay
A Sanibel Island restaurant has paid $222,432 in earned back pay after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found a variety of Fair Labor Standards Act violations, the agency announced last week.
That pay went to 48 employees of The Island Cow, an average $4,634 per employee.
“It was over two years ago and settled,” Island Cow owner Brian Podlasek said in a text message to the Miami Herald. “Well before COVID and all the other challenges we face today.”
Labor’s Wage and Hour Division investigators caught Island Cow:
▪ Using “an unlawful tip pool, which required tipped employees to share earnings with non-tipped workers, including dishwashing assistants and kitchen expeditors.” In 2019, tipped employees in Florida could be paid as low as $5.44 an hour as long as they made at least $3.02 an hour in tips. The minimum wage for non-tipped workers was $8.46.
▪ Wrongly classifying cooks, a bookkeeper and a bar manager as exempt from overtime. They were paid flat salaries no matter how much they worked.
▪ Not keeping accurate records of worker hours and earned wages.
“Front-line employees in the food service industry deserve to be paid all the hard-earned wages they have earned,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff. “The law allows the employers of tipped workers to use those tips as a credit towards the employee’s wages, but only if they meet all the legal requirements. Employers must also understand that paying an employee a flat salary does not automatically make them exempt from overtime.”
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 11, 2021 at 10:26 AM with the headline "A Florida restaurant shorted waiters, waitresses, cooks and others of $222,000 in pay."
