John SchroyerEmployees at four Maryland marijuana dispensaries owned by Curaleaf Holdings (TSX: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) filed suit against the company last week, alleging that the multistate operator condoned a pattern of wrongful employee tip distribution that included payments to management.
In a federal lawsuit, Curaleaf budtenders at the four shops alleged that supervisors regularly received a larger portion of the shared tips from customers, The Baltimore Sun reported, which the employees claim is a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
Each of the four Curaleaf dispensaries in Maryland have roughly 15-18 budtenders, another three to four supervisors, one assistant manager and one manager. But while the budtenders are the ones performing nearly all customer-facing work, the supervisors and managers were taking a share of the tips budtenders earned, according to the lawsuit.
The suit is being spearheaded by former Curaleaf workers Gabriella Beck and Ronnie Matthews, The Sun reported. Beck worked at the Curaleaf shop in Reisterstown from April last year through February, while Matthews has been employed at the Curaleaf Montgomery Village dispensary since 2021. Four other Curaleaf budtenders also joined the suit after it was filed just last week, The Sun noted.
“Unfortunately, illegal tip pooling is commonplace in the cannabis industry because employers wrongly assume that when they pay budtenders at the hourly minimum wage or higher, they can do whatever they want with the tips left by customers,” attorney Sarah Block, who’s representing the plaintiffs, told The Sun in an email.
Curaleaf did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Sun.
