Lawsuit Alleges Olive Garden Parent’s Tipping Policy Causes Racial Discrimination

Advocacy group One Fair Wage is suing Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants, alleging the company’s tipping policy encourages sexual harassment and racial discrimination against its waitstaff.

The complaint, which was filed Thursday in California federal court, is the latest salvo in the battle against the tipped minimum wage. In 43 states, employers can pay their workers as little as $2.13 an hour as long as that hourly wage and tips add up to the locality’s pay floor. Otherwise, the employer has to make up the difference.

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In the lawsuit, One Fair Wage said that Darden’s tipping policy causes its employees who are people of color to earn less than white employees. A poll of 200 Darden workers conducted by the advocacy group found that servers who are people of color made 18% less in tips per hour than white servers. {snip}

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“The cash wage policy is the direct cause, or at least a motivating cause, of this disparate impact,” the complaint said.

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The advocacy group suggests several alternatives that could help, including pooling tips, adding a standard service charge to all bills or providing standards to customers that would minimize the role of race in tipping decisions. Darden’s current corporate policy allegedly does not allow managers to use different tipping systems.

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Darden’s tipped employees make more than $20 an hour on average, he said. The company recently raised its pay floor to $10 an hour, including tip income. The company plans to boost wages to $11 per hour in January and by an additional dollar the following year.

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One Fair Wage is asking the court to declare that tipping policies like Darden’s are illegal and violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The plaintiff is also seeking an injunction against Darden from maintaining those policies and employment practices.