As a small business employer, you are under intense pressure to minimize fixed cost, like employee wages, while still maximizing production. As a small business owner myself, I understand, believe me I do. However, if your business relies on low-wage employees, you must be aware of the lawsuits for wage-theft that low-wage employees (like fast food workers) have been filing across the country. And, in New York, the state attorney general’s office has paid special attention to these types of claims (and has even designed a special type of complaint forms for these workers).
As Dave Jamieson discusses, the New York attorney general recently reached a settlement of $500,000 with a McDonald’s franchisee to compensate workers who were asked to regularly perform work “off-the-clock work before and after their shifts.” They were also shorted out of an “allowance for the time and costs associated with cleaning uniforms they had to wear [and the did not] receive an extra hour of minimum-wage pay after shifts in which they worked 10 consecutive hours -- requirements of New York law.”
The New York attorney general’s office has also reached similar settlements in recent months against other types of establishments that hire low-wage employees (a $3.9 million settlement with some New York car wash chains and the reinstatement of 25 Domino's workers who were fired for making claims for labor abuses).
These cases show that even though we might be tempted to ask our employees to “help out a bit more”, we also have to adhere to the law.
