In January 2011, several employees of the Hard Rock Café at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL filed a class action lawsuit against the company for its alleged failure to pay minimum wages as required under Florida law. Florida law requires that “’[a]ll Floridians are entitled to be paid a minimum wage that is sufficient to provide a decent and healthy life for them and their families.’” Florida law, therefore, allows employees who receive tips to be paid less than the minimum wage only if “the eligibility requirements for the tip credit under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act are met.” If the requirements for the tip credit are met, an employer may apply part of an employee’s tips to satisfy its requirement to pay the minimum wage amount. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees are entitled to retain all of the tips they receive unless there is a valid agreement for “’pooling of tips among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips.’” 29 U.S.C. section 203(m). If employees are not allowed to keep all of the tips they receive, the employer may not utilize the tip credit and must pay the employees the full minimum wage.

The complaint filed against Hard Rock Café alleges that for a period of time during 2006 – 2009, Hard Rock Café paid its servers and bartenders less than the minimum wage while taking a tip credit for the employees.

The complaint further alleges that there was an improper sharing agreement between the servers and bartenders and other employees employed as expediters such as kitchen workers. The complaint also alleges that Hard Rock Café was not entitled to a tip credit for the server and bartender employees because these employees did not retain all of their tips because of the sharing arrangement. According to the lawsuit, these employees were entitled to be paid the full minimum wage.

Source:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hard-rock-cafe-servers-and-bartenders-sue-for-minimum-wage-114120559.html

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