US Department of Labor recovers pay and fines Maui’s L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, Dairy Rd. location

The US Department of Labor recovered $134,000 in tips, overtime wages and damages and assessed nearly $5,700 in penalties after an investigation found that the owner of Maui’s L&L Hawaiian Barbecue at 270 Dairy Road, shorted employees’ tips and other pay.

The investigation by the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Hui Bing Zhang, owner of the Kahului-based L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, illegally kept a portion of employees’ tips and deprived them of their lawful overtime earnings.

MauiNow reached out to Zhang for comment with phone and email queries on Wednesday, but did not receive a response by late afternoon.

Investigators determined that Zhang, owner of Maui L&L Food Inc., knowingly underpaid employees their earned premium pay and recorded the deficient cash payments separately and outside their normal payroll. Both practices are violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Labor Department reported recovering $58,600 in unpaid overtime wages and $8,791 in withheld tips for 21 employees. The employees were also awarded $67,391 in damages. Civil penalties assessed amounted to $5,685.

“The US Department of Labor is determined to fight wage theft in the restaurant industry and across all sectors of the economy,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Terence Trotter in Honolulu. “This restaurant employer willfully violated the law by deliberately underpaying workers their overtime wages and pocketing a portion of the tips they earned.”

If workers believe they are owned back wages, they can use the Wage and Hour Division’s Workers Owed Wages search tool. Employers and workers can contact the Wage and Hour Division for help and assistance by calling its toll-free number, 1-866-4-US-WAGE.