‘Common Wage Theft Practices’ Subject of Lawsuit Against Planet Pizza

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A proposed class action alleges Columbia, South Carolina eatery Planet Pizza and two individuals with control of the business engaged in “a variety of common wage theft practices” in violation of both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state minimum wage laws. The two lead plaintiffs, one of whom is a minor, allege the defendants regularly failed to pay them for all hours worked and occasionally compensated them by taking cash straight from the resister. The individuals say the defendants, explaining their failure to pay proper wages, claimed they were “broke,” then refused to pay employees for time worked until after a point-of-sale system was installed and operational. This did not take place until more than a month after the plaintiffs began working for the defendants in June 2017, the case says.  

Once the restaurant was up and running, the plaintiffs say, the defendants attempted to apply a tip credit toward the wages of non-tipped employees, including those of maintenance workers, hostesses and cashiers. Moreover, the defendants supposedly kept credit card tips from customers without distributing the money to employees, who were never paid proper overtime nor minimum wages.