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Mario Batali Ordered To Pay $5.25 Million


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"Celebrity Chef Mario Batali Ordered To Pay $5.25 Million For Skimming Tips From His Restaurant Help" by Debra L. Rothenberg for nydailynews.com

In the end, the lawyers "skimmed" $1.75 Million of the workers tips instead.

So, Don you are telling us the sharks lawyers were working for a contingency fee of 1/3.   It seems to be the way we do things around here in the US.  Right or wrong.  At least the FOH staff gets some of the money they were due.   The wronged staff hired the law firm/lawyers.  Too bad they couldn't get a deal with a cap on lawyers fees on the total winnings.  Everything is expensive.

The article references a series of these cases in the past.  This goes on a lot more than I realized and through the school we have seen that it occurs.  Its quite ugly with the operators taking advantage of staff.   Its a shame.

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So, Don you are telling us the sharks lawyers were working for a contingency fee of 1/3.   It seems to be the way we do things around here in the US.  Right or wrong.  At least the FOH staff gets some of the money they were due.   The wronged staff hired the law firm/lawyers.  Too bad they couldn't get a deal with a cap on lawyers fees on the total winnings.  Everything is expensive.

The article references a series of these cases in the past.  This goes on a lot more than I realized and through the school we have seen that it occurs.  Its quite ugly with the operators taking advantage of staff.   Its a shame.

Yes, it is "the way things are done," and it's wrong. American Lawyers, as a group, are perhaps the most overpaid profession in the world. Physicians, incidentally, are not far behind, but nobody has the fortitude to say so, probably because of the profession's benevolent history, lost long ago to capitalism, lawyers, and other interlopers.

My son has my blessing to be anything he wants to be in life, except a lawyer (which probably means he'll be a lawyer).

(PS - this "news" is way too old, and so this thread will be deleted with my apologies.)

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Or, you could move it to NY  :) .

Old or not, it's still news, and really points out how the whole practice of tipping sucks - workers in restaurants should be paid a living wage as well as be paid for all the hours they work.

B & B's restaurants and other ventures bring in 100's of millions every year.

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Or, you could move it to NY  :) .

Old or not, it's still news, and really points out how the whole practice of tipping sucks - workers in restaurants should be paid a living wage as well as be paid for all the hours they work.

B & B's restaurants and other ventures bring in 100's of millions every year.

Now this is something I can run with.

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This isn't about sharing with runners and bussers. From a different source:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/mario-batali-agrees-to-5-25-million-settlement-over-employee-tips/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

The lawsuit against Mr. Batali, filed in 2010, said that he and a partner, Joseph Bastianich, and their restaurants had a policy of deducting an amount equivalent to 4 to 5 percent of total wine sales at the end of each night from the tip pool and keeping the money.

The New York Post said:

http://nypost.com/2012/03/08/batali-partner-settle-wage-and-tip-lawsuit-for-5-25-million/

The suit alleged that Batali and Bastianich "misappropriated" 4 to 5 percent of each shift's wine and drink sales from the workers' tip pool, took an unlawful "tip credit" that pushed pay below minimum wage and failed to pay extra for shifts lasting more than 10 hours.
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Joe, first, let's be clear. It's 4 to 5 percent of total wine sales that was deducted from the tip pool, not a percentage of the pool. Potentially a lot more money. Way more than you'd need to cover breaking a few wine glasses.

Since when is there a minimum wage for waitstaff? Well, here's the thing. You can pay less than minimum wage, if tips make up the difference. But if the house is withholding some of that tip money - and it doesn't matter how much - then the minimum wage rules apply. You can't claim some of that money and then pay less than minimum wage. That's just the law.

The law also appears to say that the house can't claim any of that tip money anyway, under any circumstances. At least, that's the view of the Department of Labor. One court has disagreed with that, so it's still an open question.

The law, at least in New York, also requires overtime. I don't know since when, but it does. Don't like it? I'm sorry.

And Joe, you know what? There are a lot of business practices that were perfectly legal in the 1930's and '60's that aren't any more. And I think most people are pretty happy about it.

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Joe, first, let's be clear. It's 4 to 5 percent of total wine sales that was deducted from the tip pool, not a percentage of the pool. Potentially a lot more money. Way more than you'd need to cover breaking a few wine glasses.

Since when is there a minimum wage for waitstaff? Well, here's the thing. You can pay less than minimum wage, if tips make up the difference. But if the house is withholding some of that tip money - and it doesn't matter how much - then the minimum wage rules apply. You can't claim some of that money and then pay less than minimum wage. That's just the law.

The law also appears to say that the house can't claim any of that tip money anyway, under any circumstances. At least, that's the view of the Department of Labor. One court has disagreed with that, so it's still an open question.

The law, at least in New York, also requires overtime. I don't know since when, but it does. Don't like it? I'm sorry.

And Joe, you know what? There are a lot of business practices that were perfectly legal in the 1930's and '60's that aren't any more. And I think most people are pretty happy about it.

"One of the Finkbeiners at the Hotel Traube Tonbach described the attitude of these family-owned enterprises as "thinking in generations rather than quarters." That means reinvestment, but because the families lack the resources of publicly traded hotel chains or new Emirati or Russian wealth, it also means picking your battles when making business plans. Hermann Bareiss told me that his family couldn't afford to compete on what he called "hardware" "” marble floors, gold fixtures, even artificial islands. Instead, it has chosen to compete in the realm of "software," by which he meant his workers. The waiters I overheard that morning in the breakfast common room, switching from eloquent French to German to English and back, were turned out by the Kerschensteiner School for just that purpose."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/one-tiny-german-town-seven-big-michelin-stars.html?pagewanted=5&_r=0 is an excerpt from a Sunday magazine piece in the New York Times last year about Baiersbronn, Germany which is an incredible village with two three Michelin star restaurants along with two others with stars.  In a large village.

But the article refers to the German apprenticeship system which these restaurants participate in and are exemplery examples of.  The last sentence, "switching from eloquent French to German to English and back" is well taken.  We've been to Schwarzwaldstube twice and Bareiss twice and every one of the four visits have had staff who spoke perfect English.

This is not an area that many Americans or Brits visit.  We were told that in the previous month only one other English speaking couple had been there.

But they are representatives, examples of the German system where teenagers enter and literally serve an apprenticeship to become among the finest service staff in the world.  Just as those in the kitchen serve a similar apprenticeship.  The result is that in all of my years of travel with (pick a number) of days in Europe, the best service I have ever had in a restaurant was in these two, Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube.  I would also suggest that the latter is the overall best restaurant I have ever experienced.  (The negative:  a year's wait for one of the eight tables.  It is known in Germany and nearby Switzerland.)

This is where America should be going:  professional service staff who are proud and passionate to be part of the restaurant/inn/resort they represent.  For those "behind the range" a similar kind of apprenticeship.  Both of these, all properly compensated with wages, hospitalization and disability, retirement and vacation.  The price of this is included in the check as is tax.

I believe that this is the way it should be.

Unfortunately, it is rare to find this level of excellence in many American restaurants.  Today there is not a great deal of compensation and benefits for this kind of career commitment.  But it is where we should be going.  And, as in Baiersbronn today, the price should be shouldered by those at the table.  Bussers, servers, sommeliers, spillage, breakage and the cost of doing business are all factored into the prix fixe.  One number.  Anything over this including excellent service, a small amount in cash plus the credit card for the bill.

It really is where this thread should go.

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I am not trying to feel indifferent to those who filed this suit I just don't understand.  Anemic wages and long hours without benefits  have been  the standard dating back more than eighty years.  Waiters and waitresses were essentially among the first independent contractors, if you will.  If a restaurant was expected to pay additional for overtime and for, say, hospitalization, unemployment, life insurance and vacation this would all have to be added on to the cost of a meal.  This is just the way it was.

I gotta weigh in with Joe here.  And he's only scratching the surface.  Why aren't we pulling kids out of school at 13 to go down into the mines any more?  If it was good enough for great-grandpa, it's good enough for me.  I remember the good old days where workers you to fight for jobs that let then suck asbestos fibers into their lungs ten hours a day, six days a week.  My very own grandfather (really) worked in a cotton mill and got to spend his whole paycheck -- and more! -- on company housing and food from the company store.  I wish my children could have that same opportunity!

Change that benefits the laboring classes is really the opposite of "progress" and the more we people hear this uncomfortable truth, the better.

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Joe, if you simply add a zero to that $1.92 per hour that you got, you would be getting $19.20 (est.) today--IF wages had kept up with inflation. But, as we all know, they haven't.  I made $24.09 a DAY as a hotel union member in LA working in the Accounting Office.  I also had an apartment that cost $100/month.

Please take what Waitman wrote to heart. Neither your early experiences nor mine are relevant here.  Except to point out, however, that folks could live on those minimum-wage salaries and they can't now.

Also, you should be aware that the IRS randomly audits waitrons and determines what they should have made in tips and levies taxes on those. (As we can surmise, waitrons and other tipped personnel don't always own up to the full amount of those tips when they file their taxes). So, if management takes any amount of those tips off the top, the IRS will still expect the worker to pay taxes on the total amount.

I'm more and more moving over to the people who want to get rid of tipping altogether for all those reasons.

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"One of the Finkbeiners at the Hotel Traube Tonbach described the attitude of these family-owned enterprises as "thinking in generations rather than quarters." That means reinvestment, but because the families lack the resources of publicly traded hotel chains or new Emirati or Russian wealth, it also means picking your battles when making business plans. Hermann Bareiss told me that his family couldn't afford to compete on what he called "hardware" "” marble floors, gold fixtures, even artificial islands. Instead, it has chosen to compete in the realm of "software," by which he meant his workers. The waiters I overheard that morning in the breakfast common room, switching from eloquent French to German to English and back, were turned out by the Kerschensteiner School for just that purpose."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/one-tiny-german-town-seven-big-michelin-stars.html?pagewanted=5&_r=0 is an excerpt from a Sunday magazine piece in the New York Times last year about Baiersbronn, Germany which is an incredible village with two three Michelin star restaurants along with two others with stars.  In a large village.

But the article refers to the German apprenticeship system which these restaurants participate in and are exemplery examples of.  The last sentence, "switching from eloquent French to German to English and back" is well taken.  We've been to Schwarzwaldstube twice and Bareiss twice and every one of the four visits have had staff who spoke perfect English.

This is not an area that many Americans or Brits visit.  We were told that in the previous month only one other English speaking couple had been there.

But they are representatives, examples of the German system where teenagers enter and literally serve an apprenticeship to become among the finest service staff in the world.  Just as those in the kitchen serve a similar apprenticeship.  The result is that in all of my years of travel with (pick a number) of days in Europe, the best service I have ever had in a restaurant was in these two, Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube.  I would also suggest that the latter is the overall best restaurant I have ever experienced.  (The negative:  a year's wait for one of the eight tables.  It is known in Germany and nearby Switzerland.)

This is where America should be going:  professional service staff who are proud and passionate to be part of the restaurant/inn/resort they represent.  For those "behind the range" a similar kind of apprenticeship.  Both of these, all properly compensated with wages, hospitalization and disability, retirement and vacation.  The price of this is included in the check as is tax.

I believe that this is the way it should be.

Unfortunately, it is rare to find this level of excellence in many American restaurants.  Today there is not a great deal of compensation and benefits for this kind of career commitment.  But it is where we should be going.  And, as in Baiersbronn today, the price should be shouldered by those at the table.  Bussers, servers, sommeliers, spillage, breakage and the cost of doing business are all factored into the prix fixe.  One number.  Anything over this including excellent service, a small amount in cash plus the credit card for the bill.

It really is where this thread should go.

I've only lived in Europe for five and half months so I'm sure you've spent more days here Joe, but the longer I am here, the harder it becomes to compare American life to European life.  Your comment about language is a perfect example.  I deal with students from over 60 different countries, from Inner Mongolia to Germany to the US.  The only country where it is not expected for you to come out of the pre-University school system speaking only one language is the US.  It is well known that the only parents and students who complain about the language requirement for my school are the Americans.  As for dining, it is a completely different experience here than in the US: you are never rushed, excellent service is expected whether in the local Irish pub or high end restaurant, and there is a sense of pride by those who work and own the restaurant that is not the norm in the US.  Comparing the two continents and their service systems is comparing apples and oranges, still fruit but of vastly different flavors and qualities.

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Well, I should clarify.  I passionately agree that the days of the "independent contractor" for waitstaff and much of the rest of staff come to an end.  There should be/must be hospitalization, sick leave, vacation and other fundamental benefits that most every industry accepts as standard.  All I am suggesting is that for many restaurants this is not factored into the price that is paid.  In Europe it is. 

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But the American way is resistance to the price of a meal going up. ...

In truth the American system is badly flawed and perhaps not just unfair but even potentially dangerous to its employees.  I believe the foundation for much of this is the fear that the public here will not pay much more than they already do.

I haven't checked any studies (and I'm sure there are plenty), but my gut feel is that the price of dining out has gone up a lot in recent years. Cocktails and wines by the glass have gone from $8 to $14, and many entrees have gone from $22 to $35 (or thereabouts).

For years, I've supported doing away with the traditional tipping system. Pay servers (and cooks, and dishwashers, and AGMs) like professionals, and let them act like it.

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agm, Barbara, waitman, I now understand that I am wrong about management taking any percentage off of the money distributed for tips.  It has been drummed (!) into me that it simply should not have been done regardless of the reason.

I am going to crawl back into the night....

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I've only lived in Europe for five and half months so I'm sure you've spent more days here Joe, but the longer I am here, the harder it becomes to compare American life to European life.  Your comment about language is a perfect example.  I deal with students from over 60 different countries, from Inner Mongolia to Germany to the US.  The only country where it is not expected for you to come out of the pre-University school system speaking only one language is the US.  It is well known that the only parents and students who complain about the language requirement for my school are the Americans.  As for dining, it is a completely different experience here than in the US: you are never rushed, excellent service is expected whether in the local Irish pub or high end restaurant, and there is a sense of pride by those who work and own the restaurant that is not the norm in the US.  Comparing the two continents and their service systems is comparing apples and oranges, still fruit but of vastly different flavors and qualities.

hillvalley, am I correct you are living in Switzerland just across the Italian border?  I am also guessing that you are painfully aware the Swiss Franc is about .89 to the US dollar.  At one time, in 1983, it was 2.75.

I believe there is a life changing experience when one lives and works in another culture.  I believe it is an education unto itself, every bit as valuable as an advanced degree.  I might even argue more valuable.  You are truly fortunate:  most people in their lifetime will never have the opportunity you have.  I also know there will be times, perhaps many times, that you will dearly miss simple American things:  a television show, the US edition of USA Today and having lived in the Washington, D. C. area, just flying into D. C. at night and looking out the window of the plane at our city's lights.

I know a number of people who have lived in Europe for two, three, four years and then returned to the States.  All of them, when possible, would take day, two day or weekend trips elsewhere using where they lived as a base.  Even if it's just getting on a train and riding in a direction for three or four hours, getting off in a village, town or city and wandering around, then returning:  do it. I am guessing that you are not far from Montreaux, Verona, Torino, or half dozen incredibly beauitful Alpine towns in several countries.  You could even go south to Bologna which is a city unto itself (and I love).  Take advantage of your stay if you possibly can.

But when you do come home, you'll have a perspective and knowledge that you would not have otherwise had.  Enjoy your stay; you'll cherish it for the rest of your life.

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Yes, it is "the way things are done," and it's wrong. American Lawyers, as a group, are perhaps the most overpaid profession in the world. Physicians, incidentally, are not far behind, but nobody has the fortitude to say so, probably because of the profession's benevolent history, lost long ago to capitalism, lawyers, and other interlopers.

My son has my blessing to be anything he wants to be in life, except a lawyer (which probably means he'll be a lawyer).

(PS - this "news" is way too old, and so this thread will be deleted with my apologies.)

Seriously? As an attorney, i'm used to gratuitious slams, but to see this on a board which prides itself on having comments based on evidence, and having opinions expressed that are well thought out rather than knee-jerk, this is surprising. this is of course the topic of another thread, and frankly probably another website, but this is the deal--if lawyers are taking a cut of the profits, it generally means that the client paid none, or a very small percentage of the fees for the attorneys to take a case. i'm not an employment lawyer, but in my field (intellectual property) this can mean fronting literally $3-5 million in work, with at least $1 million in associated fees for electronic document vendors, experts, etc., and if you're lucky, you get paid 2 years after you first started working, but often it means carrying that debt for 3-5 years. and, because there's really no such thing as a guaranteed case, the law firm eats that if they don't win, which is often the case. further, it is entirely possible to win, and actually not to make any money because the case ends up taking much more time than expected. what's the interest rate on a $3 million loan, over 4 years with a 40% likelihood of default leaving you $1million in debt?

Given that many of us on this board refrain from commenting on the ludicrous nature of many restaurant industry markups--$14 cocktails, $10 plates of roasted broccoli, 350% markups on wine (that's not rare or unusual so you're not paying curatorial fees) crazy markups on cheese, i could go on but won't--out of politeness to the many industry people on board, and respect for their professions, it would be nice if others were similarly polite.

Also, that grossly overpaid doctor? the general practicioner or pediatrician that treats your child for pneumonia or treats their ear infection probably gets the princely sum of like $40 from the insurance company for your 20 minute visit, and then, from that $40 has to pay their nurses, receptionists, etc, and then spend 10 minutes personally filling out your chart for your visit, and their staff will spend at least 30 minutes dealing with the insurance forms, etc. and that's on top of the crushing debt you accrue in medical school and then residency and possibly fellowship.

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