Last week, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) published a news brief on its website summarizing the investigation findings of investigators from the DOL’s Wage and hour Division (“WHD”) of various restaurants in the Charleston, South Carolina area. The WDH investigators found numerous violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “Violations”) at 13 restaurant locations. The Violations included: (i) failure to pay cooks, dishwashers and runners for all hours worked, which resulted in the employees not earning minimum wage for all their hours and not receiving time-and-one-half for their hours worked beyond 40 in the workweek; (ii) failure to keep legally mandated time and attendance records; (iii) requiring servers to give a percentage of their tips to the employer; (iv) requiring servers to work for tips only; and (v) requiring employees to purchase their uniforms that reduced their wages below minimum wage. To address and resolve the Violations, a cosent decree judgement was approved resulting in the restaurants paying workers: (i) $1.2 million in back wages and (ii) other related damages for the Violations. See this link from the DOL’s website for more detail.