Cilantro Mexican Grill to Pay $100k in Back Wages and Fines for Not Paying Overtime

The Cilantro Mexican Grill restaurant chain in Rhode Island will pay more than $100,000 in back wages to 32 employees who were denied overtime pay or paid straight time for overtime in cash in violation of labor laws, the U.S. Department of Labor announced on Tuesday.

The chain, owned by CMG Holding Company LLC, also employed three minors at its Cranston and North Providence locations — one 16, two 17 — to use their own vehicles to make food deliveries in violation of child labor laws, the Labor Department said.

The company’s restaurants in Cranston, Providence, East Providence, Newport, Coventry and Warwick were investigated, the Labor Department said, and the probe revealed that the restaurants paid cooks and servers straight time instead of legally-required time-and-a-half when they worked more than 40 hours a week.

To accomplish this, the owners entered overtime hours under a different payroll code, combined hours when employees worked at more than one location in a week and occasionally paid straight time for overtime in cash. Those recordkeeping practices violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the Labor Department.

“This investigation was part of an ongoing enforcement initiative by the Wage and Hour Division’s Hartford district office to improve compliance in the Connecticut and Rhode Island restaurant industry,” a Labor Department release stated.

CMG Holding Company is now paying $100,417. Of that, $50,208 is in the form of back wages and an equal amount is classified as liquidated damages.

Thirty-two employees were effected.

The company has also ceased using minors to drive and paid a civil money penalty assessed for the child labor violation.

“While Cilantro Mexican Grill took action to correct its violations, they should not have occurred in the first place. Rhode Island employers must realize that underpaying workers harms not only the workers but also places at a competitive disadvantage those employers who obey the law. They must also understand that illegally employing minors in potentially risky jobs that are prohibited by the child labor laws needlessly places young workers at risk of injury, and will not be tolerated.” said Michelle Garvey, the division’s district director for Rhode Island and Connecticut.