Being a waitress can be a hard job, especially if your employer withholds wages and tips from you. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to employees working at El Gaucho, a Northwest steakhouse chain. Back in 2016, a lawsuit was filed against the company “by a server working at the Tacoma restaurant, who alleged managers withheld tips and required off-the-clock work, among other labor-law violations.” Just recently, the company “agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the claims.”The lawsuit itself was filed by Matthew Blasco, a former server at the Tacoma location. In the lawsuit, he alleged “El Gaucho gave employees cards with restaurant credit in lieu of payment for off-the-clock work, such as prep work or cleaning, and that servers were sometimes required to work without being clocked in.” Additionally, he also accused the company of “giving management a percentage of the tips, and denying or not paying workers for breaks that are required by state law.”

El Gaucho Logo; Image Courtesy of Seattle Restaurant Week - The Seattle Times, https://srw.seattletimes.com

Blasco isn't the only one who stands to gain a chunk of the settlement, though. In fact, about 400 “current and former employees at the Tacoma, Bellevue, and Seattle restaurants are affected and will be notified” of the settlement agreement, according to the settlement. The settlement was “preliminarily approved by Pierce County Superior Court Judge G. Helen Whitener” back on Nov. 17. An April 20 hearing will be held to determine whether or not to finalize the settlement.In response to the settlement announcement, Chad Mackay, CEO of El Gaucho’s operating company, issued the following statement:“Our company consistently strives to be a great place for our employees to build their careers and we provide excellent compensation, benefits, training and work environment. Our decisions are always based on what is right for our team, our guests and our company. Therefore, we chose to settle this lawsuit rather than continue to spend company resources on legal fees.”In addition, attorney Darrell Cochran said:“This agreement will ensure that customers are fully informed when making their tipping decisions that the restaurant may be retaining for itself portions of automatic service charges that otherwise would go to the employees serving them.”According to Cochran, El Gaucho isn't the only restaurant in the area that was short-changing its employees. When speaking on the matter, he said, “based on the investigation conducted during the lawsuit, it became clear that employees in many restaurants throughout the area have been short-changed on tips, breaks and overtime wages. He added, “we heard it said many times that El Gauchos was just doing what every other high-end restaurant was doing.”Fortunately for current and former El Gaucho employees, the company has “agreed to disclose how its automatic service charge is distributed” as part of the settlement agreement.

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El Gaucho agrees to pay $1.5 million to employees to settle lawsuitSteakhouse agrees to pay $1.5M to employees in settlement