BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced a $100,000 settlement on Friday with a West Springfield International House of Pancakes and its owner to resolve allegations of wage law violations.
RME Enterprises and Robert Evans, the company's president and treasurer, allegedly violated multiple wage laws through practices including requiring waitstaff to pay from their tips the meal costs of customers who left without paying their bills, requiring waitstaff to share tips with non-waitstaff, requiring waitstaff to pay for breakages of dishware from their wages and shaving work time and wages to account for alleged meal break time for breaks that were never taken.
In one instance, an employee was allegedly terminated the same day as she resisted paying out her tips for the full bill of a customer who left without paying.
Coakley alleged RME Enterprises and Evans violated the Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage Law, the Wage Act, the Tips Law and the Anti-Retaliation Law.
"Workers deserve to be paid all of their wages, including tips," Coakley said. "Restaurant employees should not have to front the business costs of the restaurant out of their pay."
Under the terms of the settlement, RME Enterprises and Evans must pay more than $100,000 in restitution and penalties and comply with the state's wage and hour laws going forward. The 174 individual workers involved in the settlement will receive amounts ranging from $40 to more than $1,700, depending on their length of service at the West Springfield IHOP.
Mass. IHOP settles wage allegations with attorney general
