There are no limits to the number of salaried employees a restaurant in the State of Florida can have, as long as they are all paid to standard. The restaurant/fast food industry includes businesses that sell and serve prepared food and beverages to customers for consumption on or off the premises.
Have it in mind that restaurants/fast food businesses in Florida with annual gross sales from one or more establishments that total at least $500,000 are subject to the FLSA. Although hourly employees tend to get paid based on the number of hours they work, salaried employees get an agreed weekly, bi-weekly or monthly wage.
The FLSA stipulates rules on how salaried employees should be paid including overtime. According to the FSLA, the employer is expected to pay the agreed amount of wage at the agreed interval. Have in mind that the wage can be part of the employees’ pay or it can be the full payment.
Most often, the pay period and salary are a result of dividing the employee’s annual pay by the number of annual periods weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Also, note that the employer is restricted from reducing the employee’s pay if work is reduced or unavailable as long as the employee is willing to work. The employer is also not permitted to reduce pay for half-day absences.
This simply entails that if an employee takes a half-day off; they still get paid for the full day. However, the employer is allowed to take certain permissible deductions to the pay in situations such as unpaid disciplinary suspensions, overuse of benefit days, and personal leaves.
Labor Laws and Requirements for Restaurants in Florida
You have to understand that most restaurant labor laws in the State of Florida come from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), an act that was signed in 1938 by Franklin D. Roosevelt. This act explains the standards for full-time and part-time workers in the private sector and federal, state, and local governments.
The FLSA also notes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards for enterprises in the restaurant/fast food industry and helps to cater to restaurant employee rights. Here are labor laws and requirements for restaurants in Florida:
Minimum revenue for subjection: To be subject to FLSA rules and regulations, the Florida restaurant must have annual gross sales of at least $500,000 from one or more establishments.
Minimum wage requirement: Although the FLSA notes that salaried workers in a restaurant are entitled to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, employers in Florida are required to pay a higher minimum wage to their employees at $8.46 per hour.
Deductions and minimum wage: Have in mind that deductions for cash shortages, work uniforms, or customer walk-outs are considered illegal once they take the employee’s wage below the minimum wage.
Tips and minimum wage: Just as with most states, tips may be considered part of wages in the State of Florida, but the employer will still have to pay no less than $2.13 an hour and also make sure that the tips and wages add up to at least the minimum wage.
Overtime: There are no Florida laws concerning overtime. Howbeit, federal laws regarding overtime still apply in Florida. Under the laws, salaried workers that work overtime are entitled to a pay “time and a half” of their usual hourly pay. Salaried managers are the most common example of exempt employees who enjoy the overtime laws.
Overtime and tips: Tipped employees who work overtime will also have to be paid one and one-half times the applicable minimum wage, not one and one-half times $2.13
Youths and minimum wage: Youth employees under the age of 20 can be paid a minimum wage of no less than $4.25 an hour within the first 90 days of their employment.
Unpaid meals: Under Florida labor laws, an employer is expected to offer a 30 minutes unpaid meal to all employees under the age of 18 years. Note that no such rules apply to employees aged 18 and older. There are neither federal nor Florida laws that mandate employers to offer unpaid meals to people aged 18 and over.
Breaks: No Florida or federal labor law mandates restaurants to provide their employees time off for lunch or short breaks during the work day. Howbeit, a good number of employees still get meals and rest breaks. Employees will need to be compensated for shorter breaks allowed during work days since they are not allowed to take these breaks in the first place.