Class-action lawsuit seeks to collect wages for Iowa’s airport restaurant workers

A Linn County woman representing workers at airport eateries throughout Iowa has filed a potential class action lawsuit against her employer alleging violations of state and federal wage-and-hour laws.

Tara Hill is suing SSP America CID, a limited liability corporation that does business in Iowa as part of SSP America Inc., the American division of SSP Group, which is a global company that partners with restaurants to operate food and beverage concessions in airports, railway stations and other travel locations.

The lawsuit accuses SSP America CID of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act’s requirements and a resulting failure to pay employees the federally mandated minimum wage for all hours worked.

Under the tip-credit provision of the FLSA, an employer of tipped employees may, under certain circumstances, pay its employees less than the minimum wage by claiming a “tip credit” against the minimum wage, with the credit based on the amount of tips the employees collect from customers.

The FLSA sets forth a series of strict requirements for employers to utilize the “tip credit” and provides that an employer cannot pay less than the minimum wage to tipped employees while also requiring those employees to perform unrelated work that doesn’t generate tips.

According to the lawsuit, SSP America CID failed to inform Hill of its reliance on the tip credit; made illegal deductions that reduced the direct wage of Hill or others below the minimum required hourly wage for tipped employees; required workers to purchase specific clothing for work, indirectly reducing their wages to a level below the minimum hourly wage; and required workers to perform “excessive amounts” of non-tipped work, such as preparing food, washing dishes and cleaning floors.

The lawsuit asserts that as a result of the alleged violations, SSP America CID “has lost the ability to use the tip credit and therefore must compensate” its workers for the difference between the wages paid and the actual minimum wage.

According to the lawsuit, Hill worked for the company as a server, bartender and cook at the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids airport from August 2023 to September 2025. The lawsuit alleges she was paid $6.75 per hour.

The lawsuit seeks class action status to pursue claims on behalf of not only Hill, but all other SSP America CID servers and bartenders that worked for the company over the past three years and for whom the company claimed a tip credit.

SSP America CID has yet to file a response to the lawsuit. Hill is represented by Cedar Rapids attorneys Emily Schott Hood and Nathan Willems.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.