LIHUE — Servers at Roy’s Restaurants in Hawaii will receive tips and backwages due them, according to a U.S. Department of Labor announcement on Friday. The DOL says Roy’s Holdings Inc. has violating the wage provisions of the Fair Labor
LIHUE — Servers at Roy’s Restaurants in Hawaii will receive tips and backwages due them, according to a U.S. Department of Labor announcement on Friday.
The DOL says Roy’s Holdings Inc. has violating the wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The restaurant chain has agreed to return $136,761 in tips, and pay another $88,424 in back wages, to 326 tipped servers employed at several Hawaii-based restaurants.
“Employers cannot take a credit against their minimum wage obligation to tipped staff if they require a portion of those tips to be shared with traditionally non-tipped staff such as kitchen employees,” Terence Trotter, the division’s district director in Hawaii, said in the announcement.
Roy’s Poipu restaurant, in the Poipu Shopping Village, is part of the franchise. There are six restaurants in the state, according to the Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine website.
It is unknown if any Roy’s Poipu servers were affected by the decision. Calls were referred to the corporate office and Controller Feli Rivera was unable to be reached for comment Friday.
Investigators with the Wage and Hour Division found that several restaurants were reducing the cash wage of the tipped employees below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, without allowing them to fully retain their tips during the two-year investigation period beginning in August 2011.
The employer unlawfully required the servers to pay a portion of their shift tips to the non-tipped hourly kitchen staff who were already paid at least the full minimum wage. The employer also was assessed a penalty of $1,550 for permitting a minor to load a trash compactor, which is considered a hazardous occupation for workers under the age of 18.
