A Tampa-area pizza chain got caught shorting cooks and servers $74,000 of pay, feds say
A pizza chain in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area paid $74,955 in back pay after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation, the agency announced this week.
That money went to 31 current or past employees of Joey’s New York Pizza & Italian Restaurant, an average of $2,417.90 per employee. For scale, that’s above what Apartments.com lists as the rent range for apartments in Palm Harbor ($1,027 to $2,046) and New Port Richey ($651 to $1,406), the locations of the three Joey’s restaurants Labor investigated.
Michael Trgo, Joey’s registered agent and manager in state records, did not return phone calls from the Miami Herald seeking comment.
Labor’s Wage and Hour investigators found Joey’s management tried to get around Fair Labor Standards Act overtime pay rules by:
▪ Classifying cooks as exempt from overtime and paying only a flat salary, regardless of hours worked.
▪ Paying some servers at regular hourly rates even when they worked overtime.
▪ Paying other servers “overtime based upon time and one-half their direct cash wages as tipped workers, instead of basing overtime on the full minimum wage.”
“These essential workers deserve to be paid every penny of their hard-earned wages,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicolas Ratmiroff. “We encourage other employers in this industry to use the results of this investigation to evaluate their own pay practices to make sure they comply. Too often, we find workers wrongly denied overtime simply because the employer believes paying them a flat salary covers their obligation.
“Workers or employers with questions can call us and speak directly and confidentially with a trained wage and hour professional to get answers to their questions, or to file a complaint.”
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 April 29, 2021 at 8:20 AM with the headline "A Tampa-area pizza chain got caught shorting cooks and servers $74,000 of pay, feds say."
