My husband recently began working for a brand new restaurant in our town. When he was hired, the restaurant was not even open yet and even now has only been open a couple of weeks. He was hired for an hourly wage of $11.00 an hour as the executive chef (this is a very small town!). Three separate times he asked to be a salaried employee but was told no.
Now, after working there for about 7 weeks and working about 15 hours a day for the last two weeks, one of the owners suddenly tells him that he has not been doing the job he was hired to do, and that he is being demoted to a grill man and a wage of $9.00. This is not the problem–the problem is that this same owner is also trying to tell him that he is not going to pay him his full wages and overtime for the last two weeks at the $11.00 rate. Instead he is going to use some bullsh*% formula which he claims is entirely legal and allows him to pay him less that what he earned at the $11.00 rate. Essentially, when the overtime is taken into consideration he is being paid at a rate of about $6.78 an hour.
We know this is not at all legal, we are just unsure how to fight it without resorting to a law suit. This guy is already in the middle of a suit with the department of labor for not paying his employees at a previous company overtime, so we know he’s not anxious to get involved in another court battle. If anyone has some good websites that I could go to for printable information about employee rights and laws I would really appreciate it. We will certainly sue him if we have to, but honestly just showing him that we do know the laws ourself will probably be enough to convince him to pay up.
We do have a Missouri Department of Labor. I have found a couple of things on their website that will be useful–such as the fact that Missouri requires employees to give 30 days written notice before the reduction of wages. Unfortunately I have been unsuccessful in reaching them by phone to obtain more specific information or advice.
I have been in retail scenarios where the owner was determined to screw the salespeople. Your hub needs to get out ASAP as the BS will only get deeper, and he will lose more of what his time is worth.
IIRC, employers are required to provide their empolyees information about this as well. In the restraunts I worked in as a teenager, this generally took the form of a printed page on a bulliten board somewhere (near the timecards maybe?).
In every situation I have ever seen that was anything like this – where an owner or manager had decided to screw an employee out of money ALREADY DUE THE EMPLOYEE – the only solution I’ve ever seen that worked was a lawsuit, or the threat of one, followed by the employee bailing. You do NOT want your financial security resting in this person’s hands. Trust me on this.
In every situation I have ever seen that was anything like this – where an owner or manager had decided to screw an employee out of money ALREADY DUE THE EMPLOYEE – the only solution I’ve ever seen that worked was a lawsuit, or the threat of one, or some manner of prosecution, followed by the employee bailing. You do NOT want your financial security resting in this person’s hands. Trust me on this.
Actually, he should start hunting in any case: if they employer is making the request, it’s a sure sign the restaurant is hurting financially. It may be out of business before the small claims case can come to trial.