Could be that the justification for the lefty collectivist tip-grabber has been "You didn't serve that."
Posted on 09/16/2012 4:21:09 AM PDT by dennisw
Celebrity chef Mario Batali has agreed to whip up a $5.25 million payment to the captains, waiters and other workers at his restaurants who claimed they had been stiffed out of tips.
Two-thirds of what may be the biggest settlement of its kind will be shared by 1,100 workers — everybody from the bartenders to the busboys — at swanky Manhattan eateries like Babbo, Bar Jamon, Casa Mono, Del Posto, Esca, Lupa and Otto, and Tarry Lodgein Port Chester, court papers revealed Wednesday.
The rest goes to the lawyers who took on Batali and business partner Joseph Bastianich.
When the workers sued two years ago, Bastianich called it a “shakedown” and made a point of sarcastically thanking some of the staff who took him and Batali to court.
He also discouraged other workers from joining the suit, saying, “Only the lawyers make money on these lawsuits,” the court papers state.
There was no immediate comment from either famous foodie after word of the huge settlement leaked out.
Lawyers for both sides issued a single statement saying, saying, “The matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.”
Both
Batali and Bastianich have known for several months that a giant tab was heading their way.
The agreement was hammered out after a marathon mediation meeting in October and still needs to be approved by a Manhattan federal judge before any checks are cut.
The settlement covers staff who worked for Batali’s restaurants from July 2004 through February of this year, and the payouts will be proportional — based on the number of hours worked.
The case against Batali and Bastianich was filed by Stephanie Capsolas and Hernan Alvarado, a waitress and a kitchen runner at Babbo.
Capsolas claimed she was harassed after she sued.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.nydailynews.com ...
Is this something in the Italian culture? Years ago I worked at an Italian restaurant in NYC and they forced me to hand over my tips.
undoubtedly this cheap basturd Mario is an Obama voter and here he is screwing legal/illegal immigrants and Americans
paying 5 million just like that! Probably on installments.` But his businesses are generating $$$$$$. I’ll bet old Mario is worth at least 40 million.
After the lawyers get their half the 1,100 workers will get a couple of grand each. They had better hope they didn’t just bankrupt their employer.
Many other NYC restaurant have been foking out millions, huge settlements. Not just Italian (obviously)
From McDonald’s to Mario Batali, restaurant owners have forked over big bucks in recent years to settle lawsuits brought by workers who claimed they were illegally underpaid.
Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and the Capital Grille eateries in New York and across the country, is the latest to be hit with a lawsuit alleging the type of pay abuses that critics say are rife in the industry.
Darden workers claim that they were forced to work before clocking in, received less than minimum wage without getting the commensurate tip income, and were not paid overtime when forced to work more than 40 hours a week.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/feelin_the_pinch_T6UfchPwMunJUibMV1Un0K#ixzz26dDMz900
Batali’s only recorded campaign donation was to John Edwards (*snicker, snicker*) back in 2007. However, he certainly is an Obamabot.
The basic scam was this>>>
Waiters and bartenders gets tips. Busboys have always traditionally gotten some of this tip money. What Mario Battali forced waiters and bartenders to do was fork over some of their tips to the cooks and other kitchen personnel to supplement what Mario etc pays his cooks
ALSO — I believe Mario etc forced waitresses and bartenders to kickback to managers and owners say 10% of tips for the privilege of working in such a place where the meals and tips are larger so you can make more.
I am surprised such a pro-union area like New York would tolerate “handing over tips”. In anti-union Florida and the South....Batali would be lucky to find people to work for him...even luckier if they did not fill his body with lead.
Did they use the line that the “tip” was for the entire dining experience? That’s what I was told in my short foray into the restaurant business during college. Large groups of customers (particularly on Sunday) would leave me 20-30 bucks...HUGE for a college student. Had to be left on the table and collected for a “Christmas party fund”...LOL!
They did inform us that if a customer handed us the money personally we could keep it....but who would ever do that? Everyone assumes that if a tip is left the server/bartender will be the beneficiary.
I'm simply amazed at what cheap bas___ds these Obama voting libs are. NOT!!!! Ripping off the salt of the earth illegal immigrants and struggling single mother waitresses. Count me as appalled!!!!!! At Mario's inappropriate behavior !!!11!!!
Could be that the justification for the lefty collectivist tip-grabber has been "You didn't serve that."
Mario is a flaming gay, I can’t stand his cooking either.
After this is over, Battali should close every restaurant, take a year or two off, write another book then open a new restaurant.
Then the 300 or so employees that would be fired would get to know how unions who shake down thier employers feel.
I once knew a waitress who also had to hand over her tips to the owner. I never understood how the owner got away with that.
Because he is worth a few tens of millions he can get away with wearing those gay looking yellow shoes. What a suck up photo Mario made sure he is next to Moochelle
Whoa.. This has nothing to do with Italian restaurants at all.. These practices have been standard operating procedures for over a century, and memorialized in union contracts.. I believe this is the managers, and/or owners, taking the practice to new limits.. This has more to do with pooling tips, to service employees that are not participating in the tip pool, with the owners/managers, taking a cut.. STUPID, CHEAP, and totally unfair.. The unions loved this practice because it allowed the union to insure a piece of the tip pool in forcing the tips were part of the wages, therefore allowing them to their cut..
More like the "restaurant" culture in NYC. A Chinese friend used to take me to many different restaurants in Chinatown. More likely than not I would be the only roundeye there. I was surprised at how many times he would tell me not to leave a tip as it would only go to the owner.
PS, I should have described my old friend as "American" as I was one of his witnesses when he got his citizenship.
I’ve dined at one of Batali’s stupid “celebrity” restaurants in Manhattan (not by my own choosing) and the food was awful and overpriced. He gives Italian cuisine a bad name. Plus, the Food Network is hardly watchable anymore because it is run by a rainbow of politically correct jerks.
Celebrity chef Mario Batali has agreed to whip up a $5.25 million payment to the captains, waiters and other workers at his restaurants who claimed they had been stiffed out of tips.
What am I missing here? Batali settled this and no one ORDERED him to pay anything. Why would the author appear to have LIED in the headline?
carlo3b: Whoa.. This has nothing to do with Italian restaurants at all.. These practices have been standard operating procedures for over a century, and memorialized in union contracts..
I'm glad you weighed in on this,Carlo. You have first-hand experience.
The unions loved this practice because it allowed the union to insure a piece of the tip pool in forcing the tips were part of the wages, therefore allowing them to their cut..
Unions "feed" upon each and every business with which they are affiliated. They sometimes kill their own golden goose but other times The Won will bail them out.
I thought most of the nationwide restaurants make you “pool” tips and then spread the wealth at the end of the night. If I think the waiter/waitress is exceptional and might keep it - I leave a normal tip on the bill and slip them a little something on the way out.
Quite possibly the gayest picture...ever.
We watch a show on TV called The Chew occasionally. Kind of entertaining.
Mario is one of the regulars.
I find him annoying . Butting into other host’s shtick . If they are working w/ a guest, Mario is lurking around, moving this or that, using a napkin on the guests, etc.
He usually cooks some dish during the show. Rarely does one look appetizing.
Oh, and the few times politics have come up, no doubt, he’s a raving lib.
What you are missing is that the plaintiffs commenced the class action law suit in Federal Court and pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the court MUST approve the settlement. Thus, the settling parties must file a motion for a court order approving the settlement, including the payment of attorneys' fees and expenses.
Even in non-class action civil lawsuits in Federal Court, the standard practice is for the parties to ask the court to "order" the settlement so that non-compliance carries the threat of civil contempt for failing to obey a court order.
arasina, you don’t know the half of it.. These parasites actually eat the golden geese.. Liberals are constantly calling for raising the minimum wage, which has had the most devastating effect on the most vulnerable among us..
History should teach us something, but few remember what the facts are, when we have it at our fingertips with computers..
Carter, raised the minimum wage during the 70’s oil shortages that his policies were directly responsible for..
Raising that wage all but removed the young from entering the labor force, and changed many common services that never returned.. We now pump our own gas, because kids used to pump gas at almost every service station, and they also checked our oil, aired our tires, and cleaned our windows..
GONE are those jobs, and that important entry level jobs for kids.. Also we are now eating junk, serving our own food in fast food restaurants, because busboys and girls were considered unneeded costs, and waiters and waitresses are now required to clean their own tables all too often..
The minimum wage almost did away with janitors and maintenance companies, able to clean more places in the same evenings, sprung up as a result of the increase..
These are only the jobs that I had to adjust to in my food and beverage business.. There are hundreds of changes that happen when you tinker with capital commerce..
I was always told this was done to spread tips to busboys and hosts - people who didn’t get tipped directly. It made sense to me at the time.
Some restaurant do this but this is just shared (pooled) tips among the wait staff. What Mario and other NYC owners were doing was saying the waiters, waitresses, bartenders had to give some percent of their tips to the cooks, the kitchen workers, the managers, the owners. So a waiter had to kick-back $$$ to Mario and the manager of that restaurant if he wanted to work at one of Mario's lucrative establishments. . All done in cash, undeclared cash I'll bet, and this is why Mario and company agreed to settle rather have the IRS making an example of them
When I was a youngster, I had all kind of great part-time jobs that are more or less unavailable to teenagers today. I never made a lot of money in those jobs but they provided me with pocket money and prepared me for the higher-paying jobs that would later come my way.
Gotcha both, thanks for the clarification!
Mario is married with a bunch of kids . He usually hauls the familly with him where ever he goes .
I worked in many, many restaurants in NYC as a kid and it was only Divino’s that forced me to hand over tips. I worked at Japanese restaurants and hotel bars. Never was cheated out of a tip (except by creepy patrons). In the old days, we didn’t pool tips - and, boy, did we make money!
Fashion police! He socks( whatever it is) go with the First Ladies dress. Is this not a no no? Rofl.
Yellow shoes? Batali's famous for always wearing ORANGE clogs. And he's constantly rubbing elbows with Michelle Obama.
The Food Network is the reason I stopped watching TV. It degraded into a stream of demeaning contest shows where a judging panel of cooks I never heard of told other cooks I never heard of how bad their cooking was while game show host I never heard of made snarky comments.
The “parasites” are the owners whining this refrain:
“Oh, our business is different. We can’t make money if we have to (pay overtime, pay a minimum wage, allow a forty-hour work week, pay the interns)!”
You hear it from the restaurant industry. Construction. The entertainment industry (my business).
And the answer back should always be: “No, your business is not different. If you can’t make money following labor laws, then you should go out of business.”
Wage and workweek laws only created the most prosperous, largest middle class with the best quality of life the world has ever seen. That’s all.
Never liked that sleazy guy. On his show he always seemed hopped up on something. What a creep.
Maybe in some metaphorical sense, but that doesn't seem to be a proven fact.
Not if his wife and kids have anything to say about it, I guess.
In any case, how would you know?
Paging ...
They make a cute couple
I agree completely.. The owners in this case are gluttons, literally stealing from their own struggling employees.. I also fault the unions for their own complicity in allowing the employer to fund the wages out of the tip jar, so they can get the average income higher than the hourly pay..
In the past, we would pay a very fair wage, considering the standard tip at 10%-15%, which varies depending on the quality of the dining experience.. Thus, the higher average check, the greater the tip, the higher the level of experience expected of the staff.. I had table Captains making in excess of $100,000 a year, most of it in cash..
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