A Los Angeles restaurant chain was fined $1.6 million for failing to pay overtime to 83 staff and fo

• A Thai-restaurant chain in LA was fined more than $1.6 million after failing to pay staff overtime.
• The DOL found that 83 employees at Ocha Classic and Vim Restaurant were owed more than $800,000.
• Owner Prapai Boonyindee was personally fined $62,000 for the "willful nature" of his violations.

The Department of Labor, or DOL, ordered a Thai-restaurant chain in Los Angeles to hand over $1.65 million after it failed to pay staff overtime and kept false wage records in a bid to cover it up, investigators said.

The DOL announced on Tuesday that Prapai Boonyindee, the owner of Ocha Classic and Vim Restaurant, failed to pay staff for working over 40 hours a week while creating wage records that showed none of the staff had put in extra hours.

Both actions violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, the DOL said.

A total of 83 employees missed out on $825,775 in overtime wages across the company's seven sites. Boonyindee was ordered to return this and the same amount in damages to the DOL. As many as 26 of these employees worked at the same restaurant near the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The DOL personally fined Boonyindee, who operates six Ocha Classic chains and one Vim Restaurant outlet, an additional $62,000 for the "willful nature" of his violations.

"Wage theft is used by unscrupulous restaurant-industry employers to increase their bottom lines at the expense of some of our nation's lowest-paid workers," Jessica Looman of the DOL said. 

"We work tirelessly to recover hard-earned wages owed to workers like these, and employers who disregard workers' rights accountable for their illegal pay practices and their attempt to mislead our investigators," Looman said.

According to an LA Times report from last year, diners often queue up for an hour for a table at Ocha Classic. It has even spawned several copycats that play off the term"ocha," which means "delicious" in Thai, per the Times. 

It has expanded since opening in 1985, but shut down three restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ocha Classic didn't respond to a request for comment from Insider. 

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