Mountain View Vietnamese Restaurant To Pay Damages & Back Pay To Workers

Xanh Restaurant in Mountain View will be paying more than $90,000 to employees after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found the company failed to pay overtime wages.

Half of the $93,381 to be paid by the Vietnamese restaurant will compensate workers for overtime, and half will be paid to the workers as damages, said Jose Carnevali, deputy regional director of public affairs, U.S. Department of Labor in San Francisco.

“This settlement puts money back in the hands of employees who rightfully earned it,” said Susana Blanco, district director, San Francisco Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor.

The labor department found the restaurant owes back wages and damages to 18 workers.

Workers were paid straight time rather than time and a half, and the restaurant disguised the straight time payments as bonuses on its payroll, the labor department said in a statement.

“When an employee works beyond 40 hours in a workweek, every hour worked after that needs to be paid at time-and-a-half,” Blanco said.

The labor department’s news release says the Fair Labor Standards Act is the law that applies to overtime wages.

The release says the FLSA makes employers liable for paying workers back wages and damages, and both are paid directly to workers. Xanh Restaurant will also be paying $1,683 in penalties to the federal government.

--Bay City News

--Image via Xhan Restaurant on Facebook