Posted on 09/16/2012 4:21:09 AM PDT by dennisw
Celebrity chef Mario Batali has agreed to whip up a $5.25 million payment to the captains, waiters and other workers at his restaurants who claimed they had been stiffed out of tips.
Two-thirds of what may be the biggest settlement of its kind will be shared by 1,100 workers — everybody from the bartenders to the busboys — at swanky Manhattan eateries like Babbo, Bar Jamon, Casa Mono, Del Posto, Esca, Lupa and Otto, and Tarry Lodgein Port Chester, court papers revealed Wednesday.
The rest goes to the lawyers who took on Batali and business partner Joseph Bastianich.
When the workers sued two years ago, Bastianich called it a “shakedown” and made a point of sarcastically thanking some of the staff who took him and Batali to court.
He also discouraged other workers from joining the suit, saying, “Only the lawyers make money on these lawsuits,” the court papers state.
There was no immediate comment from either famous foodie after word of the huge settlement leaked out.
Lawyers for both sides issued a single statement saying, saying, “The matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.”
Both
Batali and Bastianich have known for several months that a giant tab was heading their way.
The agreement was hammered out after a marathon mediation meeting in October and still needs to be approved by a Manhattan federal judge before any checks are cut.
The settlement covers staff who worked for Batali’s restaurants from July 2004 through February of this year, and the payouts will be proportional — based on the number of hours worked.
The case against Batali and Bastianich was filed by Stephanie Capsolas and Hernan Alvarado, a waitress and a kitchen runner at Babbo.
Capsolas claimed she was harassed after she sued.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.nydailynews.com ...
I thought most of the nationwide restaurants make you “pool” tips and then spread the wealth at the end of the night. If I think the waiter/waitress is exceptional and might keep it - I leave a normal tip on the bill and slip them a little something on the way out.
Quite possibly the gayest picture...ever.
We watch a show on TV called The Chew occasionally. Kind of entertaining.
Mario is one of the regulars.
I find him annoying . Butting into other host’s shtick . If they are working w/ a guest, Mario is lurking around, moving this or that, using a napkin on the guests, etc.
He usually cooks some dish during the show. Rarely does one look appetizing.
Oh, and the few times politics have come up, no doubt, he’s a raving lib.
What you are missing is that the plaintiffs commenced the class action law suit in Federal Court and pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the court MUST approve the settlement. Thus, the settling parties must file a motion for a court order approving the settlement, including the payment of attorneys' fees and expenses.
Even in non-class action civil lawsuits in Federal Court, the standard practice is for the parties to ask the court to "order" the settlement so that non-compliance carries the threat of civil contempt for failing to obey a court order.
arasina, you don’t know the half of it.. These parasites actually eat the golden geese.. Liberals are constantly calling for raising the minimum wage, which has had the most devastating effect on the most vulnerable among us..
History should teach us something, but few remember what the facts are, when we have it at our fingertips with computers..
Carter, raised the minimum wage during the 70’s oil shortages that his policies were directly responsible for..
Raising that wage all but removed the young from entering the labor force, and changed many common services that never returned.. We now pump our own gas, because kids used to pump gas at almost every service station, and they also checked our oil, aired our tires, and cleaned our windows..
GONE are those jobs, and that important entry level jobs for kids.. Also we are now eating junk, serving our own food in fast food restaurants, because busboys and girls were considered unneeded costs, and waiters and waitresses are now required to clean their own tables all too often..
The minimum wage almost did away with janitors and maintenance companies, able to clean more places in the same evenings, sprung up as a result of the increase..
These are only the jobs that I had to adjust to in my food and beverage business.. There are hundreds of changes that happen when you tinker with capital commerce..
I was always told this was done to spread tips to busboys and hosts - people who didn’t get tipped directly. It made sense to me at the time.
Some restaurant do this but this is just shared (pooled) tips among the wait staff. What Mario and other NYC owners were doing was saying the waiters, waitresses, bartenders had to give some percent of their tips to the cooks, the kitchen workers, the managers, the owners. So a waiter had to kick-back $$$ to Mario and the manager of that restaurant if he wanted to work at one of Mario's lucrative establishments. . All done in cash, undeclared cash I'll bet, and this is why Mario and company agreed to settle rather have the IRS making an example of them
When I was a youngster, I had all kind of great part-time jobs that are more or less unavailable to teenagers today. I never made a lot of money in those jobs but they provided me with pocket money and prepared me for the higher-paying jobs that would later come my way.
Gotcha both, thanks for the clarification!
Mario is married with a bunch of kids . He usually hauls the familly with him where ever he goes .
I worked in many, many restaurants in NYC as a kid and it was only Divino’s that forced me to hand over tips. I worked at Japanese restaurants and hotel bars. Never was cheated out of a tip (except by creepy patrons). In the old days, we didn’t pool tips - and, boy, did we make money!
Fashion police! He socks( whatever it is) go with the First Ladies dress. Is this not a no no? Rofl.
Yellow shoes? Batali's famous for always wearing ORANGE clogs. And he's constantly rubbing elbows with Michelle Obama.
The Food Network is the reason I stopped watching TV. It degraded into a stream of demeaning contest shows where a judging panel of cooks I never heard of told other cooks I never heard of how bad their cooking was while game show host I never heard of made snarky comments.
The “parasites” are the owners whining this refrain:
“Oh, our business is different. We can’t make money if we have to (pay overtime, pay a minimum wage, allow a forty-hour work week, pay the interns)!”
You hear it from the restaurant industry. Construction. The entertainment industry (my business).
And the answer back should always be: “No, your business is not different. If you can’t make money following labor laws, then you should go out of business.”
Wage and workweek laws only created the most prosperous, largest middle class with the best quality of life the world has ever seen. That’s all.
Never liked that sleazy guy. On his show he always seemed hopped up on something. What a creep.
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