Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog
A California wage theft lawsuit filed on behalf of 240 workers is being settled for $690,000, having been given the preliminary approval from a superior court judge recently. Final approval of the deal is expected in April, according to BerkleySide.com. As our Los Angeles restaurant wage theft attorneys know, the restaurant industry is notorious for a host of labor law violations, ranging from failure to pay overtime, denying meal breaks, skimming hours from time sheets or failing to pay for work-related responsibilities . The U.S. Department of Labor’s wage-and-hour division reported that roughly 84 percent of full-service restaurants investigated between 2010 and 2012 had violated labor law standards, including wage and tip violations.
This class action litigation was pursued by workers such as prep cooks and dishwashers at a chain taco restaurant, where current and former employees say they were cheated out of fair wages and subjected to other labor law violations.
According to the initial complaint, Martinez et al v. Gordo Taqueria et al, the lawsuit alleges that for at lest four years, defendants had a practice of distributing plaintiffs’ tips at the end of each calendar year or occasionally sometimes periodically throughout, requiring workers to pool their tips and unlawfully divide them amongst themselves in an a fashion that was arbitrary. Continue Reading ›