Restaurant group fined for underpaying workers

Unpaid overtime, minimum wage violations cited by state labor commissioner’s office

SAN FRANCISCO » A popular Bay Area Burmese restaurant group and another local restaurant are facing steep fines for alleged wage theft violations affecting hundreds of workers, the state labor commissioner’s office said Thursday.

The labor commissioner cited Rangoon Ruby Burmese Cuisine, which has locations in Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Carlos, Burlingame and Belmont, for $ 4.96 million for underpaying workers, according to a news release from the commissioner’s office. Another restaurant, Kome Japanese Seafood & Buffet in Daly City, is facing fines and penalties of $5.16 million for wage theft violations. Owners of the restaurants could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Taking tips from workers and paying workers by salary to deny them their hard- earned overtime pay is wage theft,” Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su said in Thursday’s news release. “Our job is to protect working people’s right to a just day’s pay for a hard day’s work, and to stop employers who embrace wage theft as a business model.”

The office launched an investigation after receiving complaints from workers who reported their concerns to the Asian Law Caucus.

In its own statement, the Asian Law Caucus quoted an unnamed cook at Rangoon Ruby who said workers approached the group “because we couldn’t take it anymore.”

“We were working such long hours,” the cook told the Asian Law Caucus. “We were so tired and didn’t have time for our families. We hope this case will finally get us the wages that we believe we are owed.”

The labor commissioner’s office said that at the Rangoon Ruby restaurant group and Burma Ruby, owned by Max Lee and John Lee, 87 cooks were paid a fixed salary but typically logged more than 10 hours of unpaid overtime each week. Salaried employees must be paid overtime unless they meet the test for exempt status defined by federal and state laws.

The office has ordered the restaurants to pay the cooks a total of $3.8 million for unpaid overtime wages, minimum wages, and a failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements, among other penalties. The restaurant’s other employees, including 211 servers, hosts, dishwashers and bussers, were not paid the daily extra hour of minimum wage that is required when an employer schedules them to work split shifts, the labor commissioner said. Those workers are to receive a total of $590,072 for split shifts and other penalties.

The restaurants will also have to pay $574,150 in civil penalties to the state.

At Kome Japanese Seafood & Buffet, the labor commissioner’s investigation determined that 69 cooks, sushi chefs and dishwashers were paid a fixed salary that did not include overtime pay for the 55 hours a week they typically worked.

The restaurant is required to pay them nearly $3 million in unpaid wages and penalties, and an additional $ 1.4 million to hosts, servers and bussers for overtime and unpaid minimum wage violations, including counting tips as part of theminimum hourly wage, which is illegal in California.

Palyn Hung Mitchell, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, said in the group’s news release that employees who approached the legal team are kitchen staff who are “particularly vulnerable to exploitation because they have no visibility to the public, are limited-English proficient, don’t know their legal rights, and rely on their employer not just for work but for housing as well.”

“Even though retaliation for asserting your workplace rights is unlawful, workers still, understandably, have fear about coming forward.” Mitchell said. “It makes a big difference when the ( labor commissioner’s office) can investigate the employer’s practices and pursue the unpaid wages on the workers’ behalf.”