Blue Ridge Rock Festival Bartenders, Bar Backs Owed Unpaid Wages, Lawsuit Alleges

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A proposed class and collective action claims Blue Ridge Rock Festival, LLC and its owner have failed to fully compensate bartenders and bar backs for work performed during the company’s 2021 and 2022 music festivals.

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The 26-page lawsuit, filed by 15 plaintiffs, alleges bartenders and bar backs were promised ahead of the September 2021 Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Danville, Virginia and the September 2022 festival in Alton, Virginia that they would be paid around $20.00 per hour for setup and breakdown during the multi-day events. The workers were also told that they would be paid $5.00 per hour plus tips during the roughly 10 to 14 hours each day that they performed bartender, bar back, bar cashier and related tipped duties, the suit relays.

The case claims, however, that the defendants improperly paid the workers at a sub-minimum rate for every hour worked during the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, and illegally kept for themselves between $500 and $2,500 in tips or gratuities paid by customers and attendees that were meant to be given to the workers.

The lawsuit alleges Blue Ridge Rock Festival and CEO Jonathan Slye have run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Virginia labor laws by failing to pay bartenders and bar backs at the proper minimum and overtime wage rates for work performed during the 2021 and 2022 festivals.

According to the suit, bartenders, bar backs and other tipped staff were tasked with preparing the bar tent each day before customers arrived and then counting money and organizing the tent after the attendees left each evening. The case says these tasks took roughly three to five hours each day and were performed when customers and attendees were not present. Additionally, the workers spent 50 to 75 hours performing tipped duties during the 2021 and 2022 festivals, the lawsuit relays.

The suit claims that although the workers spent 25 percent of their time or more on tasks for which they did not receive tips, the defendants paid them less than the federal minimum wage for every hour worked. Moreover, though the bartenders and bar backs received a rate of $5.00 per hour for some of their hours, including overtime hours, they were paid “no wages at all” for many hours worked during the Blue Ridge Rock Festival, the case contends.

The suit says workers are owed unpaid regular and overtime wages, plus roughly $500 to $2,500 in tips that the case claims were unlawfully kept by the defendants.

The lawsuit looks to represent more than 100 people who worked as bartenders or bar backs or performed similar tip-generating tasks for Blue Ridge Rock Festival’s benefit during its 2021 and 2022 festivals and were:

• Paid less than the federal minimum wage rate for non-overtime hours;
• Not paid for overtime hours in excess of 40 per week at the required time-and-a-half rate; and
• Not paid or did not receive full payment of all tips or gratuities intended for them by the festivals’ customers and attendees.

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