Ukiah restaurateurs fined nearly $2M for wage violations

UKIAH -- California's labor commissioner fined the owners of two Ukiah restaurants $1.9 million for wage-theft violations against 47 employees over a three-year period.

A joint investigation by the labor commissioner's office and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, both divisions of the California Department of Industrial Relations, found that co-owners Yaowapha Ritdet and Steve Walter were individually and jointly liable for violations at their two restaurants, WT Yupin, Inc., doing business as Walter Cafe, and Yupin, Inc., doing business as Ruen Tong Thai Cuisine, according to an announcement from the office of Commissioner Julie Su.

The investigation found that workers at the two restaurants regularly worked more than 11 hours a day for six or seven days a week with no meal breaks, overtime pay or minimum wage between June 2010 and June of this year. Some workers were forced to sign falsified time cards showing fewer hours worked, while others were paid in cash with no record of work hours.

Those 47 workers are due more than $1.6 million in unpaid wages, and the state served an additional $189,250 in civil penalties to the owners for violating minimum wage and overtime laws.

Show Comment