Topgolf Class Action Alleging It Incentivized Managers to Underpay Workers Settled

Topgolf Wage Theft Class Action Overview:

• Who: Topgolf will settle with workers who alleged it underpaid them.
• Why: The workers alleged that the company paid workers a tipped wage of $2.13 while getting them to do untipped work. They filed a class action to reclaim their unpaid wages.
• Where: The settlement will benefit Topgolf workers nationwide.

International company Topgolf will pay an undisclosed amount to its workers to settle claims it incentivized its U.S. managers to underpay staff. 

The settlement ends a lawsuit first filed in Texas federal court in 2020 by two former employees at the company’s Spring, Texas, location, Chron.com reports.

According to the lawsuit, Topgolf used a loophole in the Fair Labor Standards Act to pay staff $2.13 per hour, well below the $7.25 national minimum wage, because they received tips during the workday. 

However, the staff members claimed they were made to do untipped work like cleaning and sanitizing while still being paid only $2.13 per hour.

Not only that, the plaintiffs alleged that Topgolf has software that would have allowed it to differentiate these different tasks and increase pay to $7.25 for time spent doing non-tipped labor, but it never did.

The plaintiffs claimed that, instead, Topgolf encouraged its managers to underpay workers by incentivizing those who kept labor costs the lowest.

“Managers were eligible to receive bonuses, in part, based on meeting or exceeding certain labor cost targets, which created an incentive to keep the amount paid to tipped employees low,” the class action lawsuit stated.

Topgolf denied the claims. 

Topgolf Back Pay Class Action To Benefit Thousands

The class action lawsuit sought back pay for employees’ non-tipped labor at $7.25 per hour. The lawsuit will benefit thousands of staff members who joined the class action with similar claims.

Topgolf, owned by Callaway Golf Company, has been the subject of several large-scale lawsuits in recent years, Chron reported.

In 2021 Top Golf was forced to pay $750,000 in back pay to employees in 25 U.S. states for unpaid overtime. The company had allegedly elevated employees into leadership roles without commensurate pay increases and failed to provide compensation for time worked past 40 hours per week.

In 2021, Topgolf also agreed to a $2,633,400 settlement to benefit certain employees who used a biometric fingerprint scanner to clock in and out of work.

The class action lawsuit had argued Topgolf violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA, because it did not provide written notice to employees or obtain their written consent before collecting their fingerprint data. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged Topgolf did not destroy the fingerprint data in a timely fashion.

In financial reports for the 2021 fiscal year, Callaway reported over $1 billion in revenue from its Topgolf properties. 

What do you think of the allegations in this case? Let us know in the comments!

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