Queens, NY Spanish Restaurant Tu Casa Facing Tipped Workers’ FLSA Lawsuit

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Two individuals formerly employed by Queens, New York restaurant Tu Casa have filed a proposed collective action against the Spanish and Peruvian eatery and its owners over allegations of unpaid minimum, overtime and spread-of-hours wages for tipped workers. The plaintiffs maintain the defendants required tipped employees—servers, bartenders, waitresses, cashiers—to spend more than 20 percent of their workdays performing non-tipped tasks around the restaurant, and went so far as to disguise the workers’ duties in payroll records.

The case claims that when the plaintiffs would work more than 40 hours a week, the defendants would exclude all hours worked over 40 in their paychecks. Moreover, the defendants allegedly failed to provide members of the proposed collective with meal and rest breaks of any length while withholding from workers that a tip credit was being used as an offset for hourly wages. Even further, the defendants supposedly withheld a portion of the plaintiffs’ tips while requiring all tipped employees to share their tips with other employees.