Matters Management

CONCORD, NH – A federal court has entered a consent order requiring the Concord-based owner and operator of three restaurants in New Hampshire and Massachusetts to pay $911,568 in back wages and liquidated damages to 99 employees after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation into their pay practices. The department’s Wage and Hour Division found El Rodeo Mexican Restaurant in Concord and two Casa Tequila restaurants in Seabrook, New Hampshire, and in Salem, Massachusetts; and owner Gilberto Reyes violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements.

IONIA, MI ‒ The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered a total of $110,000 in back wages and liquidated damages for six employees of an Ionia hotel, including two who worked there for more than 40 hours per week for nearly 10 months without pay. The couple thought they were working in exchange for free lodging at the hotel, but the hotel still charged them for their stay on some nights they worked.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division determined Ionia Hotel Business Inc., operating as American Inn and Suites, and its owner Manhal Kashat, did not pay four workers minimum wage or overtime and paid the couple nothing from March 2020 to December 2020. Following the investigation, department attorneys filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in January 2023.