ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The owners of Red Mesa's St. Petersburg-based restaurants have kept roughly $190,000 of tips intended for bartenders and servers to pay for customers who dined and dashed, according to federal investigators.
The results of the investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor were released Thursday. The restaurants included Red Mesa Restaurant on 4th Street North and Red Mesa Cantina on 3rd Street South in downtown St. Pete.
Investigators claim workers lost between $10 to $175 in tips per day. They also said owners and management deducted the cost of uniforms from employees' wages, leading some workers to be paid less than the minimum wage – a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The federal law went into effect back in 1938. In Florida, the minimum wage is $11 per hour. Employers are required to pay overtime at "time-and-a-half" for every hour an employee works beyond 40 hours a week.
READ: 93-year-old strawberry farmer mentors generations for the future
Red Mesa also didn't combine hours when employees worked at both restaurants within the same pay period, according to a media release. As a result, overtime was paid at rates lower than required by law for hours over 40 within a workweek.
"By law, two or more establishments that are commonly owned are considered a single enterprise. In this case, the employer assigned employees to work at two locations they owned. They should have added the hours worked at these locations together and paid...
The Dangote Group has become aware of a publication titled “Aliko Dangote Speaks Out on Why He Distanced Himself from Tony Elumelu,” which is false, malicious, and baseless. At no time did the Pre...