Golden Corral Sued By Assistant Managers For Overtime Pay

Golden Corral restaurants throughout the United States misclassified “Kitchen Associate Managers,” and “Hospitality Managers,” as employees exempt from overtime, failing to pay them any overtime wages for hours they worked over forty in a given workweek. According to the restaurant workers, Golden Corral refused to pay them overtime in spite of the fact that they spent the majority of their time performing the same duties that non-exempt restaurant employees performed, including cooking and preparing food, taking out trash, washing dishware and glassware, refilling food on the buffet line, unpacking products and supplies, cleaning the restaurant, and serving customers. The lawsuit claims that Golden Corral applied the same compensation and employment policies to Assistant Managers at 94 restaurants across the country. The workers also claim that Golden Corral willfully misclassified them as exempt workers ineligible for overtime pay, and was aware that Associate Managers across the country worked more than 40 hours a week without overtime compensation. The lawsuit alleges that Golden Corral failed to record all of the time that its employees worked and purposefully did not require workers to clock in or out or otherwise record their time in any way. Further, the Assistant Managers’ work hours were not recorded on their paystubs.