Employment Law: Overtime Pay for Restaurant Workers

Whether you manage, wait tables, bartend or prepare food, you may have experienced some wage violation, entitling you to compensation for unpaid overtime, tips, or meal/rest breaks. In fact, if your position falls under one of the following categories, you may be entitled to years of back pay and not even know it.

Ask yourself if you are:

a restaurant manager that spends more than one half of his/her work day performing similar tasks to hourly workers?

a food server or bus-person forced to share tips with management?

an hourly worker (e.g., a misclassified salaried manager primarily performing hourly-type tasks or a bartender) not receiving full uninterrupted meal and rest breaks?

making less than minimum wage in any position?

If so, you may be interested to know that a large percentage of the hundreds of overtime class actions filed in recent years involve the food service industry. Although these cases have primarily targeted fast food restaurants, all restaurants are required to obey the law. A review of even our own firm’s case list illustrates just how common wage violations are within the food service and related industries.

The legal system is set up to “level the playing field” and give workers the power to correct workplace abuses. Scott Cole & Associates has served California’s workforce for many years as one of the state’s most respected workers’ rights law firms and has recovered massive and record-setting settlements for employees for workplace abuses.

For a confidential discussion of your rights against a former or current employer and/or to submit a claim, contact us for more information.