Skip to main content

Cheesecake Factory Found to Be Partly Liable in $4.2 Million Wage Theft Case


Earlier this week, the California Department of Industrial Relations announced that Cheesecake Factory was partially liable for unpaid wages due to over 500 janitorial workers that worked at eight of the restaurant’s Southern California locations.  These workers started work around midnight and were found to have routinely logged up to 10 hours of unpaid overtime work each week as they were not allowed to leave until a Cheesecake Factory kitchen manager inspected their work.  This often resulted in the janitorial staff having to stay later and continue working, off the clock.  As well, it was found that these janitors routinely worked without proper meal or rest breaks.  Consequently, this was found to be unpaid work which resulted in a wage theft claim arising.

For those wondering, the janitorial staff was not directly employed by Cheesecake Factory.  However, a 2015 California law signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown stipulates that employers who utilize subcontractors for labor needs can be held to be liable for a subcontractor’s workplace violations.  As well, a 2016 law specifically provides that employers that contract for janitorial services are to be jointly liable for unpaid wages.

This $4.2 million liability (split between Cheesecake Factory, Americlean Janitorial Services Corp. (which had a contract to provide the janitorial workers), and Magic Touch Commercial Cleaning (the subcontractor which actually provided the workers) is considered to be one of the largest wage theft cases in regard to janitorial workers in recent memory.  Given that wage theft has been found to be a recurring problem in California (and far too common in a ‘cash based’ pay position like janitorial staff), attention now turns to whether other employers in the state will be found to have committed similar wage theft violations.  California employers:  tread carefully.


For additional information on the 2015 law:  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1897

For additional information on the 2016 law:  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=238.5.&lawCode=LAB

For additional information on the $4.2 million wage theft:  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cheesecake-factory-20180611-story.html?outputType=amp

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more