May 19, 2024

Saluti Law Medi

Rule it with System

US Division of Labor obtains court judgment buying Idaho Falls cafe to pay out $319K for unlawful tip sharing, child labor, additional time violations

Employer:                  Mackenzie River Pizza

                                    1490 Milligan Street

Idaho Falls, ID 83402 

Style of motion:          Consent Judgment and Order

Name of defendants: Granite Mountain Restaurants LLC MRP Idaho Falls LLC and Mark Thompson

Background: Aninvestigation by the U.S. Section of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division identified Granite Mountain Restaurants LLC and MRP Idaho Falls LLC – house owners and operators of a Mackenzie River Pizza restaurant in Idaho Falls – withheld a part of servers and bartenders acquired recommendations. The employer compensated the servers and bartenders less than the federal least wage of $7.25 for each hour by using a tip credit rating and counting customers’ suggestions to their hourly wage. The employer arranged and oversaw the idea-pool arrangement, demanding workforce to share their tips with back again-of-the-residence workers. Mackenzie River Pizza retaliated in opposition to a person employee who spoke out versus the exercise. The employer also failed to pay out overtime fees and violated federal baby labor legislation by making it possible for minors among the ages of 14 and 15 to perform during faculty several hours and later and for a longer time than permitted by the Fair Labor Benchmarks Act. Moreover, the division uncovered a 15-year-old carrying out baking activities, a prohibited profession for minors. 

Resolution: The consent judgment orders the employer to pay out $139,981 in tips, unpaid minimal wage and overtime wages and an equal volume in damages to 69 workers and prohibits the employers from even more violations. The court also purchased the payment of $5,000 in punitive damages and $34,077 in penalties.   

Court docket: U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho

Docket Variety: 4:24-cv-00059-DCN

Quote: “Illegal methods by restaurant businesses this sort of as Mackenzie River Pizza in Idaho Falls harm employees and the whole cafe employer group experiencing unfair competitors because of to prohibited labor tactics, including wage theft and retaliation towards employees performing exercises their legal rights,” claimed Regional Solicitor of Labor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco. “The resolution of this scenario must remind employers that we are decided to secure personnel and provide undesirable actors into compliance.” 

The division’s Portland Space Place of work done the investigation. The San Francisco Regional Business of the Solicitor achieved the consent judgment at the courtroom.

“In the previous two years we recovered much more than $1.7 million in unpaid tips for more than 1,000 workers in Oregon and Idaho” explained Katherine Walum, District Director for the Wage and Hour Division in Portland, Oregon. “Wage theft is a key issue for restaurant workers, who are some of the most susceptible workforce in our community, and we will continue to protect workers’ legal rights and keep companies accountable by ensuring their personnel receive all of the tricky-attained wages, such as strategies.”

Discover far more about the Wage and Hour Division, like a research tool to use if you assume you might be owed back again wages gathered by the division. You can obtain other information on the agency’s web-site if you think you may well have been misclassified as an unbiased contractor, or want to know how to file an on the internet grievance. For confidential compliance guidance, staff members and businesses can simply call the agency’s toll-free of charge helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), irrespective of where they are from.

Obtain the agency’s new Timesheet App for iOS and Android equipment – also available in Spanish –to be certain several hours and shell out are correct.