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William Leonard Roberts II, better known as multiplatinum rapper Rick Ross, said, “them Wing Stops must be doin’ nice” in his 2014 song “Burn.” But according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Ross’ family business, Boss Wings Enterprises LLC, were only doing well by violating federal labor laws, and doing so at the expense of their Wingstop employees in Mississippi.
According to a press release from the DOL, Boss Wings Enterprises LLC “made employees pay for their uniforms, safety training, background checks, and cash register shortages – and violated child labor regulations.” Some workers’ take-home pay ended up lower than the federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25 because of the business practices.
“In addition to the wage violations, division investigators learned that Boss Wings allowed a 15-year-old employee to work past 10 p.m. several times in June 2021, a violation of FLSA child labor work hours standards,” the release also states.
The DOL reported that it fined Boss Wings Enterprises LLC $62,753 for the infractions. The agency also recovered $51,674 in owed wages and damages for 244 workers across five Wingstop locations.
Boss Wings LLC is very much a family business for Rozay. The operation is reportedly managed by Tommie and Tawanda Roberts, his mother and older sister, respectively.
In an interview with Franchise Times, he revealed that Tawanda runs the day-to-day operations, and his niece also works part-time for Boss Wings LLC. Ross even gifted his son William L. Roberts lll with a Wingstop restaurant of his own as a birthday present in September 2021. And the artist appeared on the Full Send podcast in March to discuss how good the venture has been for him.
However, per Mississippi Today, Wingstop is now making sure to put some distance between itself and Rozay.
The billion-dollar multinational fast food chain issued a statement that reads as follows: “The restaurants investigated by the DOL are owned and operated by a franchisee, not Wingstop Restaurants Inc. Our franchise agreement requires all of our franchisees to operate under our operating standards, which requires compliance with all laws and regulations. We were not previously aware of the DOL action against Boss Wings LLC.”
