Several former and current restaurant workers at the Front Room in Portland have filed a federal lawsuit over alleged wage, hour and other violations by their employer. Specifically, their complaint accuses restaurant CEO and chef Harding Lee Smith of failing to pay minimum wage and overtime and violating tip sharing rules.

Filed on behalf of six Front Room workers, the lawsuit claims that three of the employees were required to surrender more than 15 percent of the tips they earned and to share them with other employees who were not customarily tipped.

"I started working at the Front Room in July of 08," says Sean Slaughter, one of the plaintiffs in the case, who's worked in the restaurant business for more than 20 years. He says he worked as a waiter at the Front Room from 2008 until just last month when he accepted another job.

Slaughter says his trouble started last spring when he wasn't given any of his credit card tips. "The practice used to be there that you would be paid weekly on credit card tips -- the restaurant would withhold all of the tips for the week and then the following week you would get a handwritten check from the restaurant," he says. "And I went for a full month back in the springtime without getting one. And I had to fight and fight and fight and finally about a month later I got half of what I was owed."

Slaughter estimates he was owed $600 or $700. He says he got just $300 back. And Slaughter says that wasn't the only problem. He says tipped employees were often asked to perform other jobs at the restaurant, but received only half the minimum wage that was owed them.

In addition, he says cooks and dishwashers who worked more than 40 hours a week were often not paid overtime. The workers are asking for $160,000 in unpaid wages and damages. "This isn't the only place that follows these kinds of practices," Slaughter says. "It's pretty typical of the industry. But I guess this place really stands out for the way they've been breaking the law and the way they've been treating their employees."

Neither Front Room owner Harding Lee Smith nor his attorney returned telephone calls from MPBN. But in a written statement Smith characterized the lawsuit as "frivolous" and says he has always complied with state and federal law regarding tipped employees. Smith also owns two other Portland restaurants: The Grill Room and Bar and the Corner Room Kitchen and Bar.

Steven Emmons represents the non-profit Restaurant Opportunities Center, which seeks to organize restaurant workers in Maine. He says his group tried to meet with Smith to resolve some of the problems. But when the sit-down never happened Emmons says they stepped up their action. "We've been staging protests in front of the Front Room, rallying public support for the workers, and the next step that we've taken is filing the federal lawsuit as well."

Emmons says his group became aware of problems at the Front Room after handing out surveys to about 500 restaurant workers in Maine. Next month he expects to release a report based on the survey's findings.