This morning Chris Hayes was fawning all over chef Tom Colicchio on his MSNBC show, the only one that I can stand watching nowadays. The show was devoted to the food and hunger crisis and Colicchio, the host of the reality show "Top Chef" and owner of the super-trendy and expensive Gramercy Tavern, was there to promote a documentary on hunger he produced titled "A Place at the Table".
Colicchio was joined after a while by other food and restaurant experts including two women very involved in the rights of the lowly paid workers who rely on tips. Somehow this never came up in the discussion: NY Times December 13, 2008 Lawsuit Accuses a Top Chef of Wage and Tip Violations By STEVEN GREENHOUSE Tom Colicchio, the celebrity restaurateur and judge on Bravo’s popular “Top Chef” television show, was sued in federal court on Thursday by a former waitress who accused his company of misappropriating employee tips, withholding some overtime pay and sometimes failing to pay minimum wage. Mr. Colicchio’s restaurants — including Craft, Craftbar and Craftsteak — were also named in the lawsuit. In the lawsuit, the waitress, Nessa Rapone, who used to work at the bustling Craftbar restaurant at 900 Broadway, between 19th and 20th Streets, asserted that Mr. Colicchio’s company, Craft Worldwide Holdings, improperly shared employee tips with supervisors, did not keep proper time records and fired her when she protested. The lawyers for Ms. Rapone, a Brooklyn resident who worked at Craftbar from March to May 2007, are seeking class-action status for the lawsuit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan. It accused management of federal and state wage law violations, including failing to pay workers time and a half for all hours worked beyond 40 a week. It also asserts that management shared employee tips with other workers who were not eligible under federal and state law to share in the tip pool. Ms. Rapone’s lawsuit also accused the company of not compensating her for the cleaning and care of the uniform that she was required to wear at Craftbar. “The Craft restaurants, all upscale establishments designed by well-known architects and catered by award-winning chefs, have earned Mr. Colicchio and his partners great success,” one of Ms. Rapone’s lawyers, Justin M. Swartz, said in a statement on Friday. “This success, however, has come at the expense of the restaurants’ hourly service workers to whom the defendants have denied proper minimum wages, overtime compensation, and tips they earned from customers.” Reached by telephone on Friday, Tom Colicchio said: “It’s a baseless lawsuit. We’re confident that a thorough investigation in the courts will find that Craftbar and Craft Worldwide Holdings have conducted themselves with the highest integrity and concern for the well-being of their employees.” Mr. Colicchio said that his company’s restaurants “pay overtime to all tipped and nontipped employees according to federal and state labor law.” He added: “We collect and distribute 100 percent of all gratuities received. We never distribute tips to any nontip-eligible employees.” Mr. Colicchio’s company also runs restaurants in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Mashantucket, Conn. Over the last few years, popular restaurants have been subjects of an increasing number of labor lawsuits and protests from waiters, bartenders, deliverymen and busboys who say they have been cheated on wages and tips. Some restaurant workers said they turned to lawyers rather than the federal or state Labor Departments because government officials often respond more slowly. Also, in New York, the Labor Department usually seeks just two years of back wages, while lawyers often file claims covering six years of back pay. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
