TGI Friday’s Accused Of Denying Workers Minimum Wage And Overtime Pay

[Omaha Steve]

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/01/23/3614729/tgi-fridays-wage-theft/


BY BRYCE COVERT POSTED ON JANUARY 23, 2015 AT 9:04 AM UPDATED: JANUARY 23, 2015 AT 10:33 AM

On Tuesday, a New York federal judge granted 42,000 TGI Friday’s workers conditional certification in their collective action lawsuit alleging wage theft.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that they have shown common allegations that the chain restaurant violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay them at least the minimum wage and overtime for extra work. Two class action lawsuits were filed last year: one by employees in Massachusetts and another by 17,700 employees in the New York metro area and Fredericksburg, VA.

Both accuse the company of making employees work off the clock without giving them extra pay. In New York and Virginia, workers say they were required to arrive well before the start of business hours and work after the restaurants closed without getting minimum wage and/or overtime pay. They also accused the chain of using a centralized time-keeping system that shaved hours of their work from their records and made them work off the clock doing non-tipped tasks such as cleaning and preparing food in bulk. In Massachusetts, the lawsuit said that workers who put in more than 40 hours a week, the threshold for receiving time and a half in overtime pay, worked any additional hours off the clock. They also say waitstaff were forced to give some of their tips to host staff, who are paid the full hourly minimum wage, reducing the waitstaff’s pay to below the required minimum wage.

The workers are seeking to recover the wages they say they were due as well as misappropriated tips. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

FULL story at link.