Investigation finds Texas restaurant owner gave over $230K of workers' tips to restaurant managers

Thousands in back wages have been recovered by the U.S. Labor Department for 274 workers employed by a popular central Texas barbecue restaurant operator who was giving a portion of tips for employee to restaurant managers, Labor411 reports.

"Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found Black’s Barbecue Inc.; Kent Black’s Lockhart Barbecue Inc. and New Braunfels Barbecue LLC – all with the same ownership and operating as Black’s Barbecue restaurant – kept a portion of the employees’ tips and shared them with managers illegally," Labor411's report stated. "The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits employers, managers and supervisors from keeping tips the business’ employees receive for any purposes, whether or not the employer takes a tip credit."

In a statement, Wage and Hour Division District Director Nicole Sellers said that food service industry employers "must know that tips are the property of tipped employees who earn them, plain and simple."

"If you take from them, you take from their families. The Wage and Hour Division is committed to safeguarding the rights of all essential food service workers," she added.