The Journal News reported on a wage theft lawsuit filed by Pechman Law Group against Taco Street and Pizza Station in Chappaqua, NY. The restaurants are popular with Former President Bill Clinton, who regularly visits both locales. The lawsuit alleges that the restaurant cheated its servers and kitchen and counter workers out of their overtime and minimum wage pay.
Four employees of Taco Street and Pizza Station say they worked as many as 90 hours per week and did not receive overtime pay. Under the law, restaurant workers are entitled to receive time and half their regular rate of pay for any hours worked over forty in a week. Instead, the workers were paid straight time rates for all hours worked over forty or a day rate (also known as “shift pay”) and, therefore, were cheated out of their overtime wages in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL).
According to the Complaint, one employee, from the start of her employment through about November 2020, received a day rate of $100 per day in cash, despite working over fifty-seven hours a week. Another employee was paid the same straight time hourly wage for all the hours he worked per week, including the forty to fifty overtime hours he would work every week.
The restaurants also failed to pay its New York employees an additional hour at the minimum wage rate when the employees worked over ten hours in a day (spread-of-hours pay) and did not give employees wage statements and accurate weekly wage notices with their pay, as required by the NYLL.
Louis Pechman and Laura Rodriguez are the principal attorneys handling the case for these workers. If you work in a restaurant and feel you may have been a victim of wage theft, or have questions about your rights as a worker, please contact Pechman Law Group at 212-583-9500 to speak with one of our attorneys. Our team of dedicated attorneys have handled hundreds of cases representing restaurant workers throughout the country and may be able to recover your lost wages.
