Not Your Average Joe’s says former vendor owes it $600K

Not Your Average Joe’s says former vendor owes it $600K after federal probe of OT wages
By Alex Spanko
The Patriot Ledger


MIDDLEBORO — Federal officials accused the Not Your Average Joe’s chain of stiffing employees out of overtime wages, but the Middleboro-based company says a third-party firm mishandled the payments.

The federal Department of Labor found that the chain underpaid workers at 15 locations – including restaurants in Norwell, Randolph and Hyannis.

But Joe McGuire, the company’s chief financial officer, said the problem stemmed from the restaurant chain’s relationship with Operations Management Group, a now-defunct Framingham staffing firm that provided line cooks for Not Your Average Joe’s and many other restaurants.

Operations Management Group assured Not Your Average Joe’s that it would handle the cooks’ payroll correctly, McGuire said, but never paid them overtime.

Under federal law, that arrangement is considered “joint employment,” Labor Department spokesman Ted Fitzgerald said. As a result, the host company is responsible for wages that the staffing firm fails to pay, even if it didn’t directly cause the shortfall.

Not Your Average Joe’s severed its relationship with Operations Management Group as soon as the Labor Department pointed out the problem in 2010, McGuire said. The restaurant chain reached an agreement with the government to repay nearly $600,000 in back wages to more than 150 former and current employees last summer, he said. All the money has since been repaid.

The federal agency just announced that agreement Thursday to promote its efforts to crack down on the restaurant industry.

Not Your Average Joe’s is suing Operations Management Group and its former owner, Adilso Bosi, in Suffolk Superior Court for the amount the restaurant chain paid in back wages. The chain, which filed the lawsuit in September, hired Pinkerton Government Services to try to find Bosi, McGuire said.

“We feel kind of duped, and we feel victimized as anybody,” McGuire said.

The federal investigation turned up more than $1.3 million in back wages owed to workers at Massachusetts restaurants for a variety of reasons, including improperly calculated overtime pay. The T.G.I. Friday’s location in Framingham and several Fresh City locations were among the 34 restaurants listed in the report. All of the establishments’ owners agreed to repay the back wages, the Labor Department said.



Read more: http://www.patriotledger.com/topstories/x777659225/Not-Your-Average-Joe-s-says-former-vendor-owes-it-600K-for-back-pay#ixzz1qhhmTvkz