The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered a popular New Orleans restaurant to pay $238,000 in back wages to 222 employees who weren’t properly paid for overtime work.
News outlets report an agency investigation determined Superior Seafood and Oyster Bar violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not combining the hours worked each week by workers who held more than one position. That means a worker who clocked 40 hours as a bartender and another 20 hours as a waiter wasn’t paid any overtime.
The agency says the miscalculation led the workers to be paid regular hourly wages for overtime work instead of time-and-a-half.
The agency says the restaurant also kept false wage records and failed to take into account incentive bonuses before calculating overtime, leading to lower payouts.