Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog
It appears that celebrity chef may have paid his employees less than the law requires. Specifically, a lawsuit was filed against one of the chef’s restaurants alleging that tips were being distributed in violation of the fair labor standards act (FLSA). The suit also alleges that many employees did not receive overtime pay to which they were entitled. The settlement reached in the case agrees to pay back wages owed and attorneys fees but it also agrees to new benefits for the employees. Specifically, many of the employees will now receive paid vacation and sick leave. A commodity that many restaurants do not provide.
Every year our office handles numerous cases in Tennessee and surrounding states involving restaurants failures to pay employees in accordance with the law. The most common violations we see are know as “tip pool” violations. Basically, the fair labor standards act says that if you are payed as a “tipped employee” then you must be allowed to keep all of your tips. The only exception to this is a valid tip pool. To be a valid tip pool the tips can only be shared with other tipped employees and non can be kept by the restaurant or the management for themselves. It is amazing how many tip pools violations our Tennessee Overtime Lawyers handle at a time when restaurants are trying to be more local and earth friendly. Maybe the restaurant should have equal concern for their employees
If you have a question for one of our Tennessee Tip Pool Violation Lawyers, please give us a call.
