Route 66 Malt Shop agrees to boost pay

Josephine Martinez de Nuñez, president of Consular Inc., told reporters the restaurant has offered to pay Kevin O’Leary, the former waiter, three times his back wages to settle the dispute.

City attorneys, meanwhile, followed up on their pledge to take the Malt Shop to court on O’Leary’s behalf. They filed a 13-page complaint in state District Court seeking unpaid wages and accusing the restaurant of retaliation.

“We had a check cut to hand to Mr. O’Leary, and now we’re served with a summons and lawsuit,” Martinez de Nuñez said. The owners “can’t believe this is happening.”

The Malt Shop’s announcement, and the city lawsuit, follow a turbulent few weeks in which owner Eric Szeman declared that he wasn’t paying the new wage because doing so would put him out of business.

But Martinez de Nuñez suggested it was confusion that led to the dispute. Szeman isn’t a “bad guy,” she said.

“The ordinance is very confusing,” she added.

The defendants named in the city lawsuit are the Route 66 Malt Shop and Grill LLC; its owners, Eric Szeman and Diane Avila; and general manager Andrew Szeman. It says the defendants punished O’Leary for supporting the new minimum wage.

“Defendants threatened O’Leary’s safety and put O’Leary in reasonable fear of death or serious physical harm,” the lawsuit.

Eric Szeman said he couldn’t immediately comment on the suit.

The new wage law boosts the minimum for most employees from $7.50 an hour to $8.50 an hour, a 13 percent increase. Tipped employees go from $2.13 an hour to $3.83 an hour, an 80 percent increase. There would be future increases, too, based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.

Martinez de Nuñez said not all of the malt shop’s employees were affected by the change.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal