NYC Hits Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Franchisee With $1.5M Over Scheduling Violations

A New York City franchisee operating Taco Bell and Dunkin’ locations has agreed to pay more than $1.5 million to settle allegations that it violated the city’s strict worker scheduling laws, marking another high-profile enforcement action tied to fast-food labor protections.

The City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection confirmed to Reuters that Salz Management LLC—responsible for roughly two dozen restaurants—failed to provide employees with adequate advance notice of their schedules.

The company also allegedly failed to compensate workers for “clopening” shifts, in which employees are required to close late at night and return early the next morning, and did not consistently offer open shifts to current staff before hiring new workers.

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The case lands at a time when New York City has doubled down on enforcing its Fair Workweek Law, first enacted in 2017 to curb unpredictable scheduling practices across the fast-food and retail sectors. The law requires fast-food employers to give workers at least 14 days’ notice of schedules and imposes financial penalties for last-minute changes.

The legislation was designed to bring stability to hourly workers whose incomes and personal lives were often disrupted by on-call scheduling practices.

City officials emphasized that the violations were not isolated. “Managers routinely failed to give workers sufficient notice of their schedules” and skipped required premium payments tied to last-minute changes, the department said in its announcement.

The settlement comes as Mayor Zohran Mamdani—who took office in January 2026—continues to prioritize labor protections, with plans to formally address the agreement in the coming days.

In a parallel move, the city also filed a lawsuit against another Dunkin franchisee, QSR Management LLC, and its managing officer, Ronny Nader. The lawsuit alleges similar scheduling violations affecting nearly 1,000 workers across 21 Staten Island locations.

Notably, the same operator had already been required to compensate more than 100 employees in a prior case in 2022.

New York’s aggressive stance follows a record-setting $38.9 million settlement with Starbucks for a similar violation announced in December 2025—the largest worker protection payout in the city’s history at the time. Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco have since adopted similar rules.

NYC Hits Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Franchisee With $1.5M Over Scheduling Violations

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