What They Actually Stole

Imagine you work on a steamboat. Not operating it — entertaining the guests on it. You’re a bartender. You are the atmosphere. You make the experience feel luxurious for people who can afford a luxury river cruise, and you do it shift after shift, often well past forty hours a week. You are told, as a condition of keeping that job, that you must sign a piece of paper. The paper says that if you ever have a problem with how you’re being paid, you cannot sue in court. You have to take it to arbitration — a private system the company can steer, with a service the company selects. You sign because you need the job. Most people in your position sign.

Then the checks come, and the overtime isn’t in them. You do the math. You know what the law says. But when you try to do something about it, the company pulls out that paper you signed and says: this conversation is over. Go to arbitration. The case gets thrown out of court. Over a hundred of your coworkers had already filed forms saying they were in the same boat, literally and legally, and a judge rules that because the case was dismissed before it was officially “certified” as a collective action, those coworkers don’t count. They’re not parties. They don’t exist in the eyes of the court.

This is how wage theft works in 2024. It doesn’t happen with a masked man in the parking lot. It happens in a contract you signed under economic duress, drafted by corporate lawyers, with a private arbitration clause and a six-month window to file your complaint — half the time the FLSA’s own two-year statute of limitations gives you. By the time you understand your rights and find a lawyer willing to take the case, the company’s paperwork says time’s up. Your claim evaporated before you even walked through the courthouse door.

And when the courts finally agree to look at the case, the company files for bankruptcy. The workers who win — if they win — join a long creditor line behind banks, bondholders, and secured lenders. The law moved. The appeals court moved. The workers filed their forms. But the money may still disappear into a bankruptcy estate. That is not a legal technicality. That is the designed outcome. That is how capital preserves itself when law begins to catch up.

Mary Rodgers-Rouzier put her name on this. She filed in 2020. The case is still moving, four years later, through reversal and remand and a company bankruptcy. The hundred and twenty-seven people who filed alongside her were told by a federal judge that they weren’t even parties to the case. That finding has now been reversed too — but the years are gone, the employer is bankrupt, and the workers are still waiting.

What the Documents Actually Say

These are direct quotes from the Seventh Circuit’s opinion in No. 23-1812, decided June 18, 2024. Every word below is from the court record.

“Mary Rodgers-Rouzier alleges that she and her coworkers who entertained guests on steamboat cruises were denied overtime payment to which they were entitled under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Over one hundred of her coworkers filed consent forms to join her proposed collective action.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812, Judge Rovner (writing for the court)

“American Queen moved again to either dismiss or stay the litigation based on the arbitration agreement. Accepting that the FAA did not apply to Rodgers-Rouzier, it instead invoked the Indiana Uniform Arbitration Act.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812

“She also argued that the court was not permitted to enforce the contract under Indiana law, when the FAA did not apply and section six specified that the agreement was governed by the FAA.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812

“Section four operates as a waiver of any statute of limitations, requiring each party to commence a claim no more than six months after it accrues.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812

“The FLSA is ‘designed to defeat rather than implement contractual arrangements.’ No matter how voluntarily they purport to do so, parties may not generally waive the statutory wages the FLSA promises, whether directly or indirectly.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812 (quoting Brant v. Schneider Nat’l, Inc., 43 F.4th 656, 662 (7th Cir. 2022))

“It would be equally unlawful for an employer and employee to agree to a pay rate of $1 per hour as it would be to agree to submit all wage claims to an arbitrator and waive any arbitration award more than $1 per hour.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812

“On February 21, 2024, American Queen and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas. The bankruptcy court lifted the automatic stay for purposes of this appeal on April 15, 2024, but it directed that if the case resulted in a favorable decision for Rodgers-Rouzier and the other employees, then they could pursue their claims only in the bankruptcy proceedings.” — Seventh Circuit, No. 23-1812, Footnote 1

Who Else Gets Hurt When One Company Steals Overtime

Public Health

Wage theft from hospitality and service workers does not stay in someone’s paycheck. It ripples directly into their physical and mental wellbeing, and into the public systems that bear the cost.

• Workers denied overtime wages on cruise vessels are frequently in physically demanding, shift-intensive jobs. When their take-home pay drops below what those hours warrant, many take on second jobs, reducing sleep, increasing injury risk, and degrading long-term health outcomes that the U.S. healthcare system eventually absorbs.
• Mandatory arbitration agreements with shortened six-month filing windows create a documented chilling effect on workers pursuing legitimate legal claims. The psychological toll of being systematically denied access to legal process — working through a bureaucratic fight while managing debt from underpayment — is a documented driver of chronic stress, depression, and anxiety in low-income service workers.
• When 127-plus workers are told by a court that they are “not parties” to a case they actively joined by filing consent forms, the message to the broader workforce is that the legal system has a cost of entry that workers cannot afford. That kind of institutional abandonment contributes to learned helplessness and distrust in institutions that public health researchers link to worse health-seeking behavior and lower vaccination and screening rates in working-class communities.

Economic Inequality

Every dollar stolen in overtime is a dollar transferred upward — from a bartender on a riverboat to the equity holders of a hospitality corporation. At scale, across an entire workforce and across industries that use the same arbitration playbook, this mechanism is a structural engine of inequality.

• The arbitration agreement in this case was signed as a condition of continued employment — not a negotiated term. This is the definition of a contract of adhesion: a take-it-or-leave-it arrangement where the economic power is entirely on one side. Workers who refuse to sign lose their jobs. The law permits this structure, which means the imbalance is not a bug; it is the system working as designed for employers.
• The six-month statute-of-limitations clause is an economic weapon. Wage claims often take time to identify — workers may not realize they’ve been underpaid until they compare notes with coworkers or consult an attorney. A six-month window disproportionately harms workers without immediate access to legal counsel, which tracks directly with income and education levels. Wealthier, more connected workers can act faster. Service workers on river cruises typically cannot.
• American Queen filed for bankruptcy in February 2024, immediately after losing ground in this appeal. The bankruptcy filing redirects any eventual judgment from workers directly into a process governed by creditor hierarchies. Secured lenders — typically banks and institutional investors — sit at the top. Workers and wage claimants typically sit near the bottom. The workers may win the legal argument and still receive pennies on the dollar, or nothing at all.
• The case involves two defendants: American Queen Steamboat Operating Company and HMS Global Maritime LLC. Multi-entity corporate structures for a single employer are a well-documented strategy for limiting liability exposure. When the operating entity files for bankruptcy, affiliated entities may retain assets that are structurally insulated from the wage claimants’ judgment.
• The broader arbitration industry benefits directly from cases like this. When companies are permitted to “select” the arbitration service — as section two of this agreement explicitly allowed American Queen to do — the service providers have a financial incentive to maintain relationships with repeat corporate clients. A system that depends on corporate repeat business to survive has a structural bias against the workers who appear in it once.

Translate the Numbers

Where to Push and Who to Watch

The 7th Circuit sent this case back to the Southern District of Indiana. The legal fight is not over. Workers still need the case to survive as a collective action, still need a damages determination, and still face a bankruptcy proceeding that may limit their recovery. Here is where accountability pressure can be applied.

Corporate Leadership on Record

• The defendants in this case are American Queen Steamboat Operating Company, LLC and HMS Global Maritime LLC. Specific names of executives and board members are not identified in the court opinion. Apply pressure to any current or former leadership of these entities through public records, SEC filings, and bankruptcy court documents filed in the Southern District of Texas.
• The bankruptcy proceedings are in the Southern District of Texas. The docket there is public. Anyone who wants to track what assets remain, who the secured creditors are, and where any worker recovery would rank can pull the bankruptcy filings directly.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies with Jurisdiction

• U.S. Department of Labor / Wage and Hour Division (WHD): The primary federal agency responsible for FLSA enforcement. If you or anyone you know worked for American Queen and was denied overtime, a WHD complaint is an independent avenue that does not require personal litigation.
• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): Mandatory arbitration agreements that restrict collective action by employees are an active area of NLRB scrutiny. The Biden-era NLRB issued rules limiting certain arbitration clauses; track whether those rules survive and apply here.
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): The CFPB has jurisdiction over arbitration agreements in consumer and employment financial contexts. Its rulemaking history on mandatory arbitration clauses is directly relevant to the structural issues in this case.
• U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas: The venue where any worker recovery now flows. Public docket. Monitor for creditor meetings, asset sale proceedings, and any objections filed on behalf of wage claimants.
• Congress — Senate HELP Committee and House Education and the Workforce Committee: These committees have jurisdiction over FLSA reform. Legislation to ban or limit mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts has been introduced in multiple sessions. Contact your representatives and demand they move on it.

Grassroots Resistance and Mutual Aid

• Connect with hospitality worker unions and advocacy organizations including UNITE HERE, which represents hotel and food service workers across North America. Unions are the single most effective structural defense against mandatory arbitration, because collective bargaining agreements can and do override arbitration clauses.
• If you are a maritime or riverboat worker who believes you have been denied overtime wages, contact the National Employment Law Project (NELP) or a local workers’ rights legal clinic. The seaman exemption from the FAA, which this case turned on, means standard maritime workers have specific legal protections that do not disappear into arbitration the same way other workers’ rights can.
• Support the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act — legislation that would ban pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts. It has passed the House multiple times and stalled in the Senate. Name your senators. Tell them the story of 127 workers who were told they didn’t exist as parties to their own case.
• Build peer wage-tracking networks in your workplace. The six-month limitations clause in this case is only effective if workers don’t know they’re being underpaid until after the window closes. Sharing pay information with coworkers is a federally protected activity under the NLRA. Use it.
• Document everything and file early. If you suspect wage theft, do not wait. Contact the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division online or by phone. Filing a complaint costs nothing and starts the official clock on your claim independently of any arbitration agreement your employer believes governs your rights.