Sounds to me like the management is ripping off the staff, and deceiving the clientele. A respectful but firm approach to the manager, an anonymous call to the local media or the Senator’s opponent might be just the thing.
A few years ago, a writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer had a very popular, much-talked-about column in which she exposed several local restaurants which kept the tips of the waiters and coat-check staff. Several embarrassed harrumphs later, the restaurants changed their policies. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant.
I’ll be checking back on this thread. I’m very interested to see what comes next. Good luck, Scuba Steve!
True, the question then would be “Is Scuba Steve considered a ‘tipped employee’ by the US Dept of Labor?” If he is, then the club is definitely doing something illegal.
The only definition I could find is
If you work somewhere that has a “no tipping” policy, and people shove money your way anyhow, does that make you a tipped employee?
Do you have any evidence for your legal claims here? Or are you just guessing and then claiming your guesses have the force of law? Because actual legal evidence cited so far, even if it’s a bit thin, doesn’t seem to support you on this.
You can’t contract away your legal rights.
Historically, I think there’s ample evidence that we are fortunate that your world is not the one inhabited by the rest of us.
You have no evidence that the kid is being paid anything commensurate to what he would be if he were getting appropriate tips. So you’re just talking out of your ass here.
Interesting reasoning. Seems to me that under this thinking, if I hire someone for a job, and don’t pay them at all, I’m in the clear. Because, after all, they’re not my employee. If they were, they’d be getting a paycheck!
Indeed, it would be a shame if one agrees to be paid $7.50/hr for working and gets paid $7.50/hr. Obviously, you should be able to complain if such a terrible thing happens to you.
Since the OP has since clarified that he agreed to salary plus tips, it’s kind of moot, they should have provided him with promised tips. My point here is that if he agreed to a salary without tips (as was my assumption from his OP), then he shouldn’t be bitching about not getting tips.
I’d also like to know when agreeing to a fixed hourly wage is considered signing away your rights.
What you’re referring to is not a nominal hourly wage. It’s a minimum wage, established in law, for someone whose income from tips exceeds a certain amount. The employer and employee are completely free to agree to a higher wage than the minimum. They are not free to agree to a lower wage than the minimum.
I’d imagine it makes you liable for termination for violating the company policy regarding tips. That violation would be you accepted it. I’ve worked at places where we employees were prohibited from accepting tips. The line we gave the tippers was, “Thank you for the offer; however, I cannot accept tips.”
I’d be wiling to bet that 95% of the members of the club do not know that the club policy is to take 100% of what is written on the check. When I worked at a country club, there was a 15% added gratuity; the server got 7.5% of it.
This club is robbing the members. I’m not saying the staff is being robbed as I don’t know the pay/benefit scale. But the members are being robbed if they think they are leaving tips that are not going to waitstaff.
Is this specific to the OP because he’s a host, or does this rippoff apply to all staff?
This is what I am wondering. Does the 18 percent gratuity charge go towards paying all the support people? Like bus-boys, hosts, kitchen help? Does the OP feel that they should get a cut of the actual tips that are intended to go to the server? Do the servers have the same wage arrangement?
Nobody gets the money. Not the servers, not the bussers, not me. Yes, the money does go to the management, and the management is ultimately who cuts my paycheck, but that doesn’t justify this.
Even then, it would still be unethical because the customers are assuming their money goes to the staff, not the bosses. Also, just because he gets minimum wage or above, if tips are allowed, that does NOT give the manager the right to take them. The managers are NOT entitled to tips.
IANAL, but I have had an experience with getting a recalcitrant employer to come up with back pay.
Do you have that first part in writing? If not, are there any other employees that would corroborate it? If you can establish that fact then it seems (in my admittedly inexpert opinion) that you have a very strong case.
How much money is at stake? If it’s under $3,000 then you could take them to small claims court. You wouldn’t need a lawyer and it sounds like you have access to all the pertinent evidence – the employment agreement, the DoL page, itemized bills which show the tipping structure, and your pay stubs. Just filing might be enough, as the club management could back down when they see that you are serious.
If the amount is over the threshold for small claims, or if there’s any possible way they could make a counterclaim then you really need to get a lawyer.
That’s also a nice idea. The press might not care but the customers definitely will. They are the ones being deceived, and at the very least they will stop giving the additional tips.
This may be a long shot, but I wonder if its actually the club itself keeping these extra tips, or maybe one or more managers just pocketing them for themselves. What I mean is, maybe it isn’t exactly a case of the tips just being included with the rest of the bill and accounted for that way and all going to the club. Maybe someone (manager or supervisor) is taking the tip money without upper management’s knowledge.
On one hand, this seems like it may not be the case because it sounds like the practice has been going on for a long time, and maybe board members are already aware of it.
On the other, it makes more sense to me that one or more supervisors have a scam going for personal benefit, rather than a big country club nickeling and diming their employees and customers in this way. Maybe its just me though.
When it involves not receiving the gratuities you are supposed to receive. Duh. Per the laws cited earlier in the thread.
Tell me, since I’m genuinely curious - what makes someone decide to invent some random personal prejudice and offer it up with the claim that it’s some sort of legal principle? I’m just curious, since you’re not the first to do it in this very thread, and it’s not something I understand at all. Why do you assume that you are capable of deciding what the law is, when obviously you don’t have any experience or knowledge of it?
I talked to my mom today (current management with IRS), might want to try contacting the IRS and checking to see if your witholding to date matches what the restaraunt is reporting as your income. If they are keeping tips and reporting tips on your income the IRS would be VERY interested in looking into their accounting practices.
If you have any evidence that something like this is happening and you report it there are also potential rewards for you as well.
He’s certainly entitled to the additional tips. About the gratuity- that’s a liitle less clear. I used to stay at a dude ranch which added a 15% service charge to the entire bill. It was pretty clear from the statement in the brochures that the service charge was to enable the ranch to pay the staff a higher wage. I imagine that the service fee was added separately so as not to make the dude ranch appear more expensive than competitors which did not have such a fee.
Excuse me sir or madam, did you think this is going to me? Or the club? Because the club is taking it from you and keeping it for themselves.
The fact that the club does not want its members to be aware of this practice gives you some leverage. Course if the patrons ask you, all you have to say is, “I am not allowed to discuss these things.” And you are covered.
Thanks for clearing up my question. If you have a new job lined up I’d wait till you start it to do anything about this problem. I sure wouldn’t threaten your current employer that you will expose their questionable practices unless they pay you back tips. I don’t know the legal definition of extortion or blackmail, but I think you’d be much better off doing this through appropriate legal channels.
And I hope that you do. The customers and the workers are being ripped-off and deceived.