Don't Want to Pay Another Salary? Why Not Take It Out of Your Other Employees' Tips? No, No, No.

I'll admit that the New York Daily News isn't my usual read, so it took me a few days to catch up to a story by reporters Robert Gearty and Corky Siemaszko (article, here), that well-known chef and restauranteur Mario Batali and his business partner, Joseph Bastianich, had been ordered to pay $5.25 million to the captain, waiters, and busboys who had for several years been "stiffed out of tips".

My first thought was, What? Batali's not making enough money himself that he has to rip off his low-wage employees?

It turns out to be not quite that bad. Well, yes it is.

According to a Daily Mail article covering the story,

[The approximately 1,100 affected workers] argued that Batali's restaurants would take 4-5 percent of tips from employees in order to pay sommeliers' salaries.

Workers also claim they were often forced to work over 40 hours a week without even making minimum wage.

Sigh.

It should be pretty simple, shouldn't it? You need to hire a sommelier? OK, you hire one. And you pay him or her a real salary, out of the restaurant's proceeds, not off the backs of your other underpaid employees.

Sorry, I don't mean to shout. But stuff like this Makes Me CRAZY.

There I go, shouting again.

The settlement, affecting workers from 2004 to this year, is believed to be the largest of its kind, and still needs to be approved by a Manhattan federal judge.