TIP sharing

Well here is another question also ,I work at The Cheesecake Factory in Boston as a server. We are required to tip out the bus staff 2.25% of our tips, not on our sales. The bus staff gets paid $2.63 an hour so essentially we are paying for their income. Is this legal? Should’nt the company pay their hourly minimum wage and the server tip them as we see fit???? Please help me understand….

As long as the busser is making minimum wage (hourly + tips) it is perfectly legal. Right now, MA min wage is $6.75 so average tips + hourly and see what you get.

I know it sounds awful, but if a company can find employees (bussers) to work without an hourly, they will do it.

Each restaurant has different rules on tipping out and if you want to work there and have ample help, tip more to those who bust their butts.

restaurants can only suggest tip sharing. they cannot force/require you to tip out anyone. if there is an unwritten rule amongst the waitstaff on how to tip bartenders/bussers then thats ok, but an owner/manager absolutely cannot tell you that you have to tip out. i have seen managers lose their jobs because of this.

When you go to the Attorney General’s web page and do a search on tip law, you’ll be interested to see what was passed in June of 2004. If you are in a “tip share” or “pool” situation, it is legal if the gratuities are going to employees, and not management. (servers/bartender gratuities may be used toward a general pool for the entire staff making less than $6.75 and hour) But the law SPECIFICALLY states that NONE of this money make go to management. It addresses tip skimming. And the uniform statement left by the previous “lawyer” is untrue without documentation of receipt on your part. Think about the last time you were provided a uniform by your employer, odds are, you signed something stating what you received. So, it is legal unless there are improper deductions or management is taking a cut.

It was in the process of researching this topic that I discovered the facts behind my previous post. Here is my question, and there seems to be enough Grey area to hire an attorney, has anyone already dealt with this?
A large casual dining chain, based out of Boston, has determined that it’s tipped employees “need assistance in managing their money” (from a company memo). Effective this month, all charge tips (previously paid at the end of each shift) will be collected and distributed in said employees paychecks. This is to assist those employees who failing to meet health insurance payments and 401K contributions.
As you know, most tipped employees paychecks are next to nothing after these deductions and taxes.
Here is my question. This was not to address a tax situation, which is an individual situation anyway, but to address those individuals failing to meet financial obligations for VOLUNTARY programs of health insurance and 401K. Entire company is blanketed by this policy, including part time employees.
What right does a company have to manage gratuities not provided by the company, in a NON-tip pool situation? For voluntary programs? The company even went so far as to issue a memo telling the employees that this was to “help them better manage their finances.” These gratuities can be held for up to 11 days based on the pay period.
Is this legal? Based on Mass tip laws passed last year, is there enough that has not been addressed to hire a lawyer?

To be honest for the most part your screwed, the best thing you can do is count your own tips record the amounts you make and your rings. Document everything date, shift whatever, and then see what you have. The hardest part about this is that Tips are usually cash or taken out in cash and thus are subject to all types of shady dealings. The only way to protect yourself is to keep track of exactly how much you personally are making. It is also the only way you would have any sort of legal case. Also a good way to check and see if a manager is skimming is to watch your percentages. As a server you will know what tip of tip percentage you average, i.e. I ring $1000 and my tips are usually $180 so i usually make 18%. If you track that carefully you will notice a discrepancy between what people are tipping you and how much your making. This is also a good way to see if other servers are skimming if you are in a pool situation.

good luck and document everything

No you are not entitled to the extra because they are paying you above minimum wage. The service charge is not considered a tip, but is considered just what it is. Look at it the same way as a late fee on a credit card bill. Not something you are happy about, but something you really can not change.

If they are paying you less than 20/hour, I would leave for greener pastures. And if you are making more than that, then you are probably doing well enough to stay.

okay here is my question about tip sharing. how is it leagel to be tax twice on the same dollar? okay for instance; I earn $94.00 for the day. the micro records you credit card tips you record the cash. the manager tells you to tip out 3% of total sales and split that with bartenders and bussers. makes sense until you claim your cash at the end of the night. i do not claim the cash i tip out. the bartenders and bussers are suppose to claim all cash tips. well i was suspended for one week , which was later reversed , for not claiming at least 11% of my cash sales. i claimed all credit card sales and i claimed all cash after tip out. why should we pay taxes twice on money earned . So i went to corp and they told me that tipping is out of the kindness of my heart and if i chose i do not have to tip. the bussers recieve minimum wage. so i have to claim all money and if i choose to pay them it is out of pocket.

Is the owner of a restaurant allowed to take part of the tipshare pool just because he/she helps out during a shift? An example, helping the bartender. Would he or she be allowed to take half of the bartenders tipshare?

The polocies restaurants impose on waiters,are outdated,& no longer apply 2 our life struggles/bills,etc.. If they were 2 cancel out tipping out others,the managers would only lose there bonus,they get here & there. Its time we(servers) stand up TOGETHER AS ONE,& demand some policy changes. It will never happen if only 2 or 3 bitch about it. Stand up for ur lively hood

I foodrun for $5.25 an hour and minimum wage is $7.25. I do get tipped out 1% of sales but was never told to claim them. All of the sudden I am getting scolded for not claiming my tips. If I am 17 and making under minimum wage, is it true that I have to claim all my tips even though they average out to exactly minimum wage. I am told that if i claim my tips, my hourly wage rate will decrease.

I don’t think it should be legal for a restaurant to charge customers a fee for service. It deceives customers into thinking they tipped, when legally, they simply paid more for the meal.

Federal Regulations state that a tip is to be distiguished from a charge for service. Look it up yourself. CFR 531.52
http://law.justia.com/cfr/title29/29-3.1.1.1.19.3.71.19.html

Another federal regulations actually explains that service charges become the employers property. Please see CFR 531.55

All a service charge does is it dissuades customers from tipping.

Didn’t your employer agree to let you accept tips?

Don’t you all have a verbal agreement with your employer that basically stipulates that you will work for very low hourly wages in exchange for the ability to accept tips?

Restaurant workers are among the lowest paid workers in this country. I thought the reason was, in exchange, they are allowed to accept tips.

It just seems like restaurants who charge customers a service fee are cheating their workers out of the opportunity to receive tips that was a part of the negotiations when they accepted the job.

I think tips should be paid out on the employee’s paycheck, however, there should be no deductions from what the employee actually was presented. Customers are supposed to have the right to decide who their tip belongs to. This is supported by the same regulations I cited previously. CFR 531.52 clearly explains that it is the right of the customer to determine matters concerning his tip.

My point is, to insure that customers are afforded their right to determine who their tip belongs to, customers must be afforded a way to determine who their tip belongs to. Generally, physically handing an employee a tip signifies that the customer wants the tip to belong to that particular employee. Like when you stay at a hotel. You simply hand a tip to the person who you want to tip and that signifies both who your tip belongs to and how much belongs to them.

When tips are errantly regarded as property belonging to all those who may have aided in serving the customer, there is really no way to substantiate who the customer’s tip belongs to and what amount belongs to them. Thus, there is really no way to protect them to what they righfully deserve.

That’s another problem common with service charges, there is no way to substantiate who deserves what.

My point is, the only way to insure that tips are retained by the employee who the customers intended to tip is to view tips as the property of the person who was physically given the tip.

The only problem with such a system is, it doesn’t solve the problem that occurs when a cash tip is simply left lying on the table. It’s my opinion that a tip left lying on the table should be considered the property of the employee who was in charge of handling the check. Since there has been no disgnation of who the tip is intended for and since there were no instructions given explaining how the tip should be divided up, it only stands to reason that a tip lying on the table was intended for who ever was in charge of handling the customer’s bill payment.

While this might not be a perfect solution, it does result in clarity on who the tip belongs to and what amount belongs to them. If a tip left on the table is viewed as belonging to all those who aied in serving the customer, sudenly everyone working in the restaurant will want a share. I don’t think it would be fair to those who actually served the customers to require that they share their tips with everyone working in the restaurant.

The ulimate solution would be to require restaurants to place a line on the check for customers to designate who their tip is intended for. Most restaurant checks currently only have the word TIP written on it, with a space to fill in the amount you want to tip. I think restaurants should be required to provide a line for the customers to explain who his tip belongs to, not just the amount he wants to tips.

The reason that I believe the customer must be afforded the right to determine all matters concerning his tip is, Federal laws state that all tips receive by the employee are to be retained by the employee. If there is no way to substantiate how much an employee actually received in tips, then there is no way to insure that that employee retain all his tips.

Federal laws have attempted to protect employees to the tips they have been given. If there is no way to substantiate how much an employee has received in tips, then there will be no way to insure that an employee retains all his or her tips.

For those of you who support automatic gratuities added to the customer’s bill, please answer these questions. Likewise, for those of you who believe that tips should belong to the “TEAM”, please also answer these questions.

If tips are not regarded as the property of the person who was personally given the tip,

What percentage of those tips should the person who was personally given the tip be entitled to?

Which other restaurant workers should share in the customer’s tip”

What percentage should each receive?

Why do you think you should be deciding matters concerning the customer’s private property, his tip?

Would you want other people deciding who the tips you present belong to?

If all restaurant employees are entitled to an equal share of any tip a customer gives, do you think that some restaurant owners will start paying all their employees $2.13 an hour, like they are currently allowed to pay their waitstaff?

If a restaurant is bringing in $1000 a night in tips and paying all 25 of their employees $5.00 an hour less than the current $7.25 an hour minimum wage due to those tips, how will the tips be doing the workers any good?

This last question might need a little explanation.
These 25 worker are all receiving an equal share of tips in this particular restaurant which means that each would be earning $40.00 a day in tips for 8 hours of work. However, if their minimum wage was being decreased from $7.25 an hour to $2.25 an hour on account of tips, then none of them would gain anything from the $1000 a night customers were attempting to tip them.

Think about it. While they are all earning $5.00 an hour in tips, there employer is reducing their hourly pay by $5.00 an hour and in the end only the employer is financially benefiting from customers tipping his employees.

Now if customers where to suddenly stop tipping in this particular scenario, the employees would all have to be paid the full minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, due to the fact that they have no tip income to bring their wages up to minimum wage. That’s the law. Please see 29 USC, section 203(m).

So, while sharing tips in a team atmosphere may at first seem fair and just, it could easily result in something that is not fair at all. If tips are shared among all those who work in the restaurant, every bit of those tips might end up in the owner’s pocket.

Is that the intent of the customer?

Jason Brown has exposed what is going on across our country.

Jason wrote,

I foodrun for $5.25 an hour and minimum wage is $7.25. I do get tipped out 1% of sales but was never told to claim them. All of the sudden I am getting scolded for not claiming my tips. If I am 17 and making under minimum wage, is it true that I have to claim all my tips “even though they average out to exactly minimum wage”. I am told that if I claim my tips, my hourly wage rate will decrease.

While Jason’s employer is requiring that the waiters give 1% of sales to the foodrunners out of their tips, the tips aren’t doing Jason any good. While Jason has explained that he is receiving $2.00 an hour in tips, his hourly wages have been reduced by $2.00 an hournto the point where his tips are only financially benefiting his employer.

When many employers require that their waiters share their tips with other types of workers, what some of them are acutally doing is, they are making the waiters share their tips with their employer. In the case of Jason, the foodrunner, he wouldn’t lose a penny if customer’s stopped tipping the waiters at his restaurant because his employer would then have to pay him $2.00 an hour more in hourly wages to bring his wages up to minimum wage, $7.25 an hour.

The waiters, where Jason works, are being required to share their tips with Jason so that Jason’s employers can indirectly benefit himself to the waiter’s tips.

This is why the team concept doesn’t work with tips. Employers have figured out that they can indirectly steal part of the tips by paying lower wages in exchange for a job where tips can be expected. If the whole team can expect tips, then the employer can benefit himself even more to the tips.

Truthfully I think waiters deserve to be paid much more than minimum wage. The only reason most earn so little in hourly wages is, their employers want to benefit themselves to the tips customers are presenting them.

The way it should be is, customers should tip 10 percent, all of which goes to the waiter who must be paid minimum wage, like everyone else in America. If customers want others in the restaurant to have a tip, then they should either have to personally present each a tip or write on the check exactly how they want their tip distributed.

Tipping has gotten out of hand. Look at all the tip jars that have shown up on counters across this country. The reason businesses are resorting to soliciting tips is, they know they can indirectly steal the tips through tip credit and tip pools.

Restaurants, along with their employees are currently expecting a higher percentage tip because the owner is increasingly taking more and more of those tips for himself.

You can’t bite the hand that feeds you and expect to keep being fed. However, an employee should be able to tell his employer to get his hands off his tips when both the employer and the employee know that the reason the employee agreed to work for such low hourly wages was for the opportunity to receive tips.

If employers are going to pay their waiters such low wages, then they shoul have to let them keep their tips. That’s why they accepted such low hourly wages.