Three servers at La Padrona, an Italian restaurant in the Raffles Hotel in the Back Bay, last week filed what they hope will be a class action suit over the way the restaurant divvies up tips - which they charge includes sharing the money with people not entitled to tips.

In their suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, the three employees also charge that on top of that issue, management simply kept some of the money from tips in a mandatory tip "pool" that under state law should only be divided among people who provide direct service to customers who are not also managers.

The suit alleges eligible servers, who as tipped employees are paid wages of just $6.75 an hour, have been shorted a total of $51,000 since they began working at La Padrona last year. The suit seeks treble damages and

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