Brooklyn Cyclones management acknowledged they had failed to pay employees the appropriate amount of tips and reimbursed at least one employee for lost wages, following a recent investigation by The City Reporter.
Just before the Cyclones faced the Jersey Shore BlueClaws last Thursday, team management addressed the findings of the story with staff, according to a recording obtained by The City Reporter.
“We obviously recognize that there was an issue a few months ago,” said Joe Hudson, a manager at Diamond Baseball Holdings. “That being said, if there are still concerns or if there are questions we can talk about it now.”
Spectators are automatically prompted to tip when they purchase a hot dog or beer at Maimonides Park in Coney Island, and concession stands do not accept cash. Yet The City Reporter found workers did not receive any tips on some paychecks, according to a review of 15 pay stubs between May and August from a half-dozen employees. According to New York state law, tips belong to the employees, and all credit card tips must be paid out by the next paycheck.
The Cyclones were sold in 2024 to Diamond Baseball Holdings, which has acquired 40% of all minor league baseball teams in the country in the past five years. This season, the company took over managing the concessions at Maimonides Park from a contractor.
“Ensuring employees are compensated appropriately remains our top priority. We are continuing the process of verifying and validating accurate tip compensation and have reiterated to our employees our commitment to resolving any discrepancies brought to our attention,” said Lauren Flemming, Vice President of Communications for DBH.
At the staff meeting, multiple employees sought clarification about how tips were pooled and distributed. One employee asked when the tip pooling started, adding “this has been going since February, we wasn’t getting tips from February,” according to the recording.
Hudson responded that in the first week of June, managers pulled all of the tip data from the first two months of the season to correct any errors from the beginning of the season. He said pooling tips was a way to expand the number of employees eligible to receive compensation from concession tips.
“Moving forward, you should have seen tips pretty regularly. And if there are concerns about specific tips,” Hudson added, “we’re committed to making sure we deal with each one of you individually and making sure that you have the visibility that you need.”
Melissa Sampson, who works as a seasonal cashier at the stadium, wrote to Hudson about discrepancies in her tips following the meeting. In a reply reviewed by The City Reporter, Hudson acknowledged she was missing tips from both a week in late June and the week of July 8. In total, DBH owed her $225 in missing tips from those two weeks, according to the email.
Yet, some stadium employees who are eligible for tips still did not receive any tips on their most recent paycheck. The City Reporter reviewed two pay stubs dated Aug. 14 that showed no compensation from tips.
One of the employees told the City Reporter she had raised the issue with a manager but had not received a response yet.
DBH did not immediately return a request for comment about whether it would order a wider review of discrepancies about how it paid employees tips.
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The post Brooklyn Cyclones Admit They Dropped the Ball on Worker Tips appeared first on The City Reporter.
