Both actions, as well as a failure of the employer to keep complete time and payroll records, constitute violations of federal wage and hour law. As a result, the federal Wage and Hour division has ordered Sand Lake Pizzeria LLC, an operator of the Orlando Giordano’s Pizza franchise, to pay 24 servers $120,695 in back wages and damages.
“The operator of this Giordano’s franchise deprived employees of their rightful pay, making it much harder for them to support themselves,” Wildalí De Jesús, director of Orlando’s federal Wage and Hour Division, said in a statement. “We can’t give them time back, but the $120,695 in wages the department recovered for these workers will go a long way toward making them whole.”
“The operator of this Giordano’s franchise deprived employees of their rightful pay, making it much harder for them to support themselves”
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Sand Lake Pizzeria LLC, a registered LLC in Florida since 2008, operates out of a Giordano's Pizza location in the Doctor Phillips area, near Universal Studios, at 6203 W. Sand Lake Road.
According to the feds, the employer illegally withheld direct cash wages for servers, paying them only in tips. The employer also failed to pay workers time and a half for hours worked over 40 in a work week, as they were legally entitled to, and failed to keep complete records of time and payroll.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal policy, requires most workers (there are exceptions) to be paid a minimum $7.25 per hour, or $2.13 in direct cash wages for tipped workers. Florida’s state minimum wage for tipped workers is currently $7.98 an hour, and will rise to $8.98 an hour on Sept. 30.
The federal agency, however, can only enforce federal wage and hour laws, meaning it cannot enforce Florida's state minimum wage or tipped wage. A comparable state agency in Florida, empowered to enforce the state's minimum wage law, no longer exists and hasn't for over 20 years.
According to the federal investigation, the employer of the Orlando pizza franchise told investigators that they’d contracted a third-party service to manage payroll, and that the service provider hadn’t raised any alarm bells about their payment practices.
The feds say this is no excuse. Employers, said De Jesús, are “ultimately responsible” for making sure workers are getting paid correctly, even if they’re using a third-party service provider.
“The Wage and Hour Division encourages all employers to use the free, online tools we offer to help them comply with the law or to call us for assistance,” De Jesús added.
Founded in Chicago, Giordano’s Pizza is known for its deep-dish pizza. The franchise has 64 locations in nine states, including Florida. Only the franchise location in Orlando near Universal Studios was found to have violated federal wage and hour law.
But Giordano’s Pizza isn’t the only Orlando employer found by the federal government to have shorted their employees lawfully owed wages this year.
In January, Orlando Health was forced by the federal Labor Department to pay out $244,000 in back wages to 49 employees after the not-for-profit organization failed to pay workers overtime premiums, allowed workers to work off the clock, and failed to keep accurate records of hours worked at four Orlando Health sites.
The federal department this year also recovered $144,000 in back pay and damages for hospitality workers of an Orlando-based cleaning company. And last year, a federal investigation found a Lake Mary roofing contracting company had violated child labor law, in addition to other wage and hour violations.
Update: After publication, a spokesperson for the federal DOL confirmed to Orlando Weekly that out of the $120,695 recovered for workers, there is still $7,919 left unclaimed from workers they haven't been able to locate, as of early morning Sept. 29. The rest has been collected. “We encourage workers who worked for this Giordano’s franchisee at West Sand Lake Road in Orlando to use our Workers Owed Wages (WOW) search tool to find out if we have back wages for them,” the spokesperson added.
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