Signage outdoors an Olive Garden restaurant in Thornton, Colorado, on Friday, March 19, 2021.
Chet Strange | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Advocacy group One Fair Wage is suing Olive Garden mother or father Darden Restaurants, alleging the corporate’s tipping coverage encourages sexual harassment and racial discrimination in opposition to its waitstaff.
The grievance, which was filed Thursday in California federal court docket, is the most recent salvo within the battle in opposition to the tipped minimal wage. In 43 states, employers pays their staff as little as $2.13 an hour so long as that hourly wage and ideas add as much as the locality’s pay flooring. Otherwise, the employer has to make up the distinction.
The tipped minimal wage was final raised in 1991, however Democrats tried to do away with it earlier this yr as a part of their plan to boost the federal pay flooring. The modification so as to add a rise to the federal minimal wage to the most recent Covid-19 reduction invoice did not go the Senate, however Democrats will doubtless revisit the difficulty once more throughout President Joe Biden’s four-year time period. Darden was among the many restaurant corporations that vocally opposed eliminating the tipped wage.
In the lawsuit, One Fair Wage stated that Darden’s tipping coverage causes its workers who’re individuals of coloration to earn lower than white workers. A ballot of 200 Darden staff carried out by the advocacy group discovered that servers who’re individuals of coloration made 18% much less in ideas per hour than white servers. The lawsuit additionally alleges that Darden’s coverage offers managers the power to affect servers’ wages as a result of they will assign servers to shifts or seating sections that are inclined to end in decrease ideas.
The grievance stated that servers who’re paid lower than the minimal wage expertise extra sexual harassment than waitstaff who work in localities that require Darden to pay them the minimal wage, primarily based on the survey accomplished by One Fair Wage.
“The cash wage policy is the direct cause, or at least a motivating cause, of this disparate impact,” the grievance stated.
Managers might inform their servers to decorate extra suggestively to earn increased ideas and switch a blind eye to sexual harassment with a view to maintain the client completely happy, in accordance with the lawsuit. Moreover, servers who complain about sexual harassment from managers could possibly be retaliated in opposition to, receiving worse shifts and tables.
The advocacy group suggests a number of alternate options that would assist, together with pooling ideas, including a regular service cost to all payments or offering requirements to clients that may decrease the function of race in tipping choices. Darden’s present company coverage allegedly doesn’t enable managers to make use of totally different tipping techniques.
“To be clear, this is not about Darden,” firm spokesperson Rich Jeffers stated in a press release to CNBC. “The complaint makes clear that their objections are with federal and state wage laws – not with our practices.”
Jeffers stated the corporate has a zero tolerance coverage for harassment and discrimination, in addition to sturdy insurance policies to make its workers really feel secure and valued.
Darden’s tipped workers make greater than $20 an hour on common, he stated. The firm lately raised its pay flooring to $10 an hour, together with tip earnings. The firm plans to spice up wages to $11 per hour in January and by a further greenback the next yr.
One Fair Wage is the one plaintiff named within the grievance. The group argues that it has the standing to sue Darden as a result of it has needed to divert extra money and time to serving to the corporate’s staff, together with paying out $175,000 in monetary help to workers due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One Fair Wage filed a grievance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September about Darden however requested that the company dismiss the cost in March. The EEOC issued the group with a proper to sue discover, which supplies it 90 days to file a lawsuit in federal court docket. Two workers of The Capital Grille, which is owned by Darden, additionally filed complaints with the EEOC final yr.
One Fair Wage is asking the court docket to declare that tipping insurance policies like Darden’s are unlawful and violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The plaintiff can be searching for an injunction in opposition to Darden from sustaining these insurance policies and employment practices.
