Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
West Chester restaurant target of suit
Kooma restaurants in West Chester and Delaware are sued over wage, tip vioations.
Three servers at the popular Kooma restaurants in West Chester and Wilmington, Del., have sued the business and its owners, contending that they were not paid the legal minimum wage for their work, and were improperly made to share their tips with cooks and other employees.
The class action suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in August on behalf of the two women and oneman, as well as others who might later join the action. It has been assigned to U.S. District Jude Anta Brody.
The complaint asks for unspecified damages tied to the amount of money that the three servers were deprived of under work rules set by the restaurant owners and managers, either because a portion of their tips were taken from them and distributed among others, they were not paid the federal minimumwage of $7.25, or theywere not paid overtime when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, who declined to discuss the specifics of the complaint, saying the complaint spoke for itself. He contended that restaurants across the region continue to violate laws concerning wages and tips for their employees – even in the wake of a highly publicized mutli-million dollar settlement by the well-known sports bar franchise, Chickie’s & Pete’s.
“What they are doing is a violation of state ad federal laws, but it is an industry-wide practice,” said attorney Arkady “Eric” Rayz of the Huntingdon Valley firm of Kalikhman & Rayz, one of two firms representing Shannon Mackereth, Jonathan Young, and Alyssa Wetzel, the Kooma servers. “They think they can get away with it.”
He said restaurant servers routinely allow their employers to pay less than minimum wage or to keep a portion of their tips for themselves or others because of their fear of losing their jobs if they complaint. “They are just happy to have a job,” Rayz said. “Unfortunately, they are being taken advantage of.”
William Shehwen of West Chester, one of the attorneys representing the Kooma restaurants – Kooma and Kooma Viet in West Chester, and Kooma Riverfront in Wilmington, Del. -- and their owners and managers, Yung H. Kwun, Scott Kim, Jang Moon, and Jin Y. Kim, declined comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
“we are still trying to analyze all of the information involved,” Shehwen said.
In February, Chickie’s & Pete’s, the Philadelphia area sports bar franchise, agreed to shell out about $8.5 million to compensate employees for failing to pay the mminimum wage and improperly keeping a portion of their tips, federal officials and the company said in a joint announcement.
Chickie’s and Pete’s agreed to repay $6.8 million in backwages and damages tomore than 1,100 current or former workers in a settlement described by the U.S. Labor Department as the largest wage-and-tip violation case in agency history. Separately, the restaurant announced it would spend nearly $1.7 million to settle private lawsuits with about 90 other employees who alleged unfair pay practices.
The suit by the three Kooma servers was filed on Aug. 18, claiming much the same thing as the Chickie’s & Pete’s complaint. The servers, who started working for Kooma between August 2006 and August 2010,
said they were pair $2.85 an hour, regardless of the number of hours they worked or the amount of tips they received, in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act.
Sometimes, the suit stated, they were not paid at all, such as when the owners required that they come in to clean the restaurant or, in one case, when the chain opened up its second location in West Chester on North Church Street and the employees were ordered to help move equipment from one to the other.
Additionally, the suit claims that tipped employees such as servers were required by the management to forfeit a portion of their tips to the cooks, sushi cooks, and kitchen staff, and also had to cover the restaurants ordinary business expenses through their tips.
At times, the restaurant owners tried to transfer tax liability they were responsible for to the servers themselves, the complaint alleges.
Last month, the servers filed a request for a temporary restraining order against the Kooma owners, saying they had been made the target of retaliatory measures meant to punish them for filing the suit.
They were abruptly told that their work day would start at 4 p.m., and that if they arrived as little as five minutes late they would be subject to termination. Prior to that, no shift had started at 4 p.m., which was a difficult start time for the three servers to meet because they worked other jobs, according to the restraining order request.
No explanation was given for the new rules, but Mackereth said in the complaint she had been told by a co-worker that the new time start was implemented “to teach (the servers) a lesson about the real world.”
On another occasion, the restaurant hostess refused to seat any patrons in Mackereth’s section, even through the restaurant was almost full. The hostess told Mackereth it was because of the suit.
Brody denied the request for an injunction against the restaurant, but ordered that employees who are unable to arrive at the 4 p.m. starting time may work an evening shift on the following Saturday or Sunday.
The servers have requested a jury trial.