BATON ROUGE — The U.S. Department of Labor recovered $101,125 in back wages from three Baton Rouge area restaurants on Monday, the agency announced.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division investigated Gulfcoast Restaurant Group, which operates Umami Japanese Bistro in Baton Rouge as well as Geisha in Prairieville and Denham Springs.
Investigators found that servers at Umami Japanese Bistro were forced to share their tips with non-tipped kitchen staff. This practice invalidated the restaurant’s use of tip credit, which allows owners to pay tipped employees a minimum of $2.13 an hour, as long as the employee averages federal minimum wage after tips are applied. The employers are required to pay at least $66,000 in wages and $7,450 in tips to the affected employees…