Marathon Grill to pay $21,000 in back wages

[bergerka]

Article here (registration required or use Bugmenot).

Marathon Grill, the popular Philadelphia restaurant chain, has agreed to pay nearly $21,000 in back wages to workers - half of them Mexicans - who were not paid overtime or were not paid at all, the U.S. Department of Labor said yesterday.

Also yesterday, Community Legal Services filed the first of what it said would be several complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Marathon Grill discriminated against its Mexican employees by failing to pay them overtime.

"We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish, son of founders Jay and Sheryl Borish.

Thoughts? I know nothing about this restaurant.

K

Edited October 12, 2005 by bergerka (log)

[Mummer]

"We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish, son of founders Jay and Sheryl Borish.

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Some people have appropriate names.

[KatieLoeb]

Article here (registration required or use Bugmenot).

Marathon Grill, the popular Philadelphia restaurant chain, has agreed to pay nearly $21,000 in back wages to workers - half of them Mexicans - who were not paid overtime or were not paid at all, the U.S. Department of Labor said yesterday.

Also yesterday, Community Legal Services filed the first of what it said would be several complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Marathon Grill discriminated against its Mexican employees by failing to pay them overtime.

"We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish, son of founders Jay and Sheryl Borish.

Thoughts? I know nothing about this restaurant.

K

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Marathon Grill is a small local chain of casual burger/sandwich shops. Think upscale diner. Their food is pretty good and they're always packed at lunchtime. I think a few of the locations have liquor licenses and are trying to transition into a Cosi-cafe type of place - sandwiches by day and drinks by night sort of format. I don't know much about the owner of Marathon beyond what was stated in the article.

Sadly this incident is not a newsflash. There is an abundance of Mexican immigrants working in the restaurants of Philadelphia (and everywhere else) and many of them are taken advantage of by unscrupulous restaurateurs due to their inexperience with the system, the language barrier and often their lack of legal work papers. They don't want to get reported to INS so they get shafted or find another job. And then some other poor hardworking soul comes and takes their place and the cycle begins anew.

The only way this will stop is if more restaurant owners are held liable for ensuring a decent living wage and overtime to the ones putting bread on their table. I hope they make an example of this case and maybe some of the other self-serving owners will start quaking in their boots and do the right thing. I've heard some pretty bad horror stories about other situations where an illegal worker gets hurt on the job and gets driven to the ER and practically pushed out the door of the moving car so the restaurant isn't "involved" in the paperwork. He's fixed up, can't pay his hospital bill, the restaurant won't cover the bill because their insurance company would drop them if they knew there were illegal workers on the clock so the poor hardworking dishwasher or prep cook ends up having to leave to flee the overwhelming medical bills. Really sad and stupid way to do business.

[Scoats]

> "We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish

Wow. So he's saying they did it on purpose? Wow.

[gabe]

> "We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish

Understatement of the year. It does not take a saint to pay your workers what they have earned, just an employer with the most basic sense of humanity. Jerks.

[Furious Flav-or]

"We're not saints," responded Marathon partner Cary Borish, son of founders Jay and Sheryl Borish.

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Some people have appropriate names.

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Maybe somebody should look into the provision of their health and disability benefits. There might be irregularities there, too.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge …