Red Dog Café Dancers Allege Employee Misclassification
Last Updated on May 8, 2018
Barnes v. 10th Street Taverns Inc et al
Filed: February 22, 2017 ◆§ 5:17-cv-00188-M
A proposed hybrid class and collective action lawsuit has been filed against defendant 10th Street Taverns Inc., which does business as Red Dog Café.
A proposed hybrid class and collective action lawsuit claims defendant 10th Street Taverns Inc., which does business as Red Dog Café, and two individuals unlawfully misclassified exotic dancers at their Oklahoma City establishment as independent contractors to avoid paying proper wages. The plaintiff claims the Red Dog Café violated both state and federal laws with its wage evasion scheme, in which the dancers were allegedly unlawfully forced to share their earned tips with the defendants.
The complaint notes that when applying the “actual economic reality test”—used by Oklahoma courts to determine the existence of an employer-employee relationship in a workplace—to the dancers’ situation, proposed class/collective members should have been treated as proper employees by the defendants.
The case summarily claims the dancers were deprived of rightful compensation as a result of the defendant:
- Requiring dancers to perform work without compensation during times for which they could not receive tips
- Refusing to pay the dancers time-and-a-half hourly overtime wages
- Forcing dancers to share tips with non-tipped workers
- Requiring dancers to pay fees for their right to work
- Defining when dancers could work “based upon their perceived attractiveness”
- Fining workers when they missed a shift or had to leave early
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