A former Chicago Athletic Association employee said in a recent federal lawsuit he and others were stiffed on overtime pay and tips by Hyatt Hotels.
The former employee also alleged racial discrimination while he worked at the downtown Chicago hotel and venue, saying in the suit he was demoted “simply because of his race.”
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago by former employee Darren Sanders against Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels and related companies, which operate the Chicago Athletic Association. Sanders is seeking class-action status, alleging that a range of employees were affected by “corporate practices” that included improper credit for tips in calculating minimum wage and overtime; “time shaving” that led to unpaid wages; “illegally retained” tips; and other practices.
The company violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act, the suit alleges.
An attorney for Sanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hyatt and the Chicago Athletic Association also did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
In the lawsuit, Sanders said he worked for the Chicago Athletic Association from June 2015 to March 2020, first as lead bartender and then as on-call server.
During that time, Sanders lost money to “time shaving,” where a 30-minute meal break was taken out of his hours “despite that fact that he did not take such break because he was too busy and asked by defendants to perform various tasks,” he said in the lawsuit.
Sanders was paid an improper rate for overtime, he said in the suit. He was regularly paid $7.69 an hour plus tips and his overtime was calculated as 1 ½ times his paid rate, when his overtime rate should have been based on the actual minimum wage, the suit alleged.
For some employees, including Sanders, tips should not have been factored into the calculation of their wages and overtime because the company failed to follow proper tip documentation and notice rules, had tipped employees spend more than 20% of their hours on non-tipped duties, and retained part of employees tips, Sanders said in the lawsuit.
In his case, the company factored tips into Sanders’s wages for all the hours he worked, even though he spent more than 20% of his time on non-tipped duties, according to the lawsuit. That included jobs such as folding tablecloths, breaking down beer bins and setting up silverware, centerpieces and tables.
The hotel also had a 21% service charge, yet tipped employees kept 18%, he said in the lawsuit. The director of catering kept 2% of banquet tips, according to the lawsuit.
Hyatt failed to reimburse Sanders for uniforms that once were free. Other employees faced many of the same circumstances, the lawsuit said.
In addition to the wage violations, Sanders, who is Black, also alleged discrimination in the lawsuit. He was demoted from lead bartender to on-call server and faced difficulty advancing in the workplace because of his race. When he was demoted, a director told him she was eliminating the position, according to the lawsuit, and hired a white man for the role two months later.
The demotion caused Sanders to lose hours, and his gross earnings fell from $1,700 biweekly to $500, he said in the lawsuit. Other Black workers lost hours too, according to the suit.
Sanders is seeking rulings declaring that Hyatt’s practices are illegal and preventing the company from continuing them. He is also seeking payment to make up for what he described as time shaving, improper credit for tips, failure to reimburse for uniform costs, and withheld tips, among other payments, penalties and damages.
