Food chains under fire for wage theft, illegal background checking

Restaurant and food-delivery chains have been under fire lately, as Chipotle, Waffle House and Papa John’s Pizza have all been slapped with lawsuits recently. Four current and former Papa John’s franchises reached a settlement with New York employees and former employees after admitting that they had not paid fair wages to 250 workers in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens locations. The franchise owners are required to pay settlement of $469,000 in back wages and restitution to those employees, who had worked in the Papa John’s locations between 2008 and 2015. “Fast food chains across the state should be on notice: we will not stop until your workers are treated with respect and paid lawful wages,” said Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general. Meanwhile, Waffle House and Chipotle were both charged with violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act in the way it informed potential employees that it would be conducting background checks. Both chains had similar events happen. The FCRA requires that job applications state that credit checks and background checks will be conducted on a standalone document. Unfortunately for the two chains, that information was allegedly buried in the application with other application information. Waffle House also allegedly violated the FCRA by not notifying plaintiff William Jones that they were not going to hire him based on the information in his background check, and Jones allegedly did not have the option to review and correct that information in the report. For more information about the FCRA and ensuring your business doesn’t get sued for violating it, contact Mind Your Business. photo credit: Waffle House Huber Heights via photopin (license)]]>