Two waiters and two busboys who used to work at the Trata East restaurant in Water Mill have filed a lawsuit against the company charging unlawful tip-pooling, appropriation of a portion of their tips, and depriving waitstaff of tips they had earned, among other things.
Ezequiel Sierra, Pawel Korta, Pluto Leitao and Genaro Cervantes, residents of Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn, worked at the Greek restaurant on Montauk Highway in the summers of 2008 and 2009. They are seeking to recover unpaid minimum wages, unlawfully expropriated tips and unpaid overtime.
The plaintiffs, who are represented by Louis Pechman of Berke-Weiss & Pechman LLP of Manhattan, are also accusing Trata of failing to keep accurate records of hours worked, failing to pay the minimum hourly wage, failing to pay employees for all time worked beyond 40 hours per week, diverting waitstaff’s tips to managers who were ineligible to participate in the tip pool and failure to pay spread-of-hours compensation of one hour’s pay at the minimum wage for each day in which the workday was more than 10 hours.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, last Thursday, June 17, and is against Orama Inc., the owner of Trata Estiatorio in Manhattan, and Orama II Inc., the owner of Trata East in Water Mill. The two restaurants are described in the suit as being a “single and joint employer” that have unified operations and share common management, ownership and control. Other defendants are owners of Trata and Trata East, Christos Giorgiou and Tim Salouros, who are described in the suit as having “authority regarding the pay practices” at the restaurants. As of yesterday, Wednesday, neither Mr. Giorgiou nor Mr. Salouros had responded to a request for comment.
Colleen Reynolds on Jun 23, 2010