New York Employment Attorneys Blog

A number of former cooks and wait staff of New York City restaurant and bar B Bar have come forward to file a lawsuit against their employer, claiming that the restaurant did not follow standards for paying employees overtime.

The restaurant, owned by prominent restaurant and club owner Eric Goode, is a fixture for the hip New York set, frequently drawing celebrities. Goode, who owns a number of other restaurants including locations at the Maritime and Bowery hotels, is named as an individual defendant in this case.

This seems to be a particularly bad year for FLSA violations at restaurants in New York. Is this the work of a beefed up Department of Labor, with more investigators as promised by President Obama? Or are restaurant workers, who historically have worked for low wages and tips, starting to flex their legal rights as more and more suits hit? In either case, it is a promising sign for employees working the restaurant industry, and for the rights of hourly workers everywhere who are routinely denied overtime pay.

We mourn the loss of visionary Tim Costello, a man who had prescient knowledge and understanding of the needs of hourly-wage workers and those at the lower end of the earning scale, those with little power to oppose outsourcing of jobs to other countries and the use of temporary workers - practices that eliminated jobs and job benefits for many American workers. He helped found Global Labor Strategies, "which fostered cross-boarder alliances to fight to improve wages and working conditions in the face of downward pressures from companies moving jobs over seas." Mr. Costello also founded the North American Alliance for Fair Employment. Mr. Costello thought that "if you were on the left you will be working at it for the rest of your life, and you may not be successful, but it would be worth the effort." We are hopeful that others will step forward to fill the shoes of this exceptional advocate for the American worker.