Tip Sharing

[YogSothoth]

@BrotherCadfael

I avoid restaurants that pool tips - in my experience, service at such places is always poorer than at places that allow the server to keep their own tips.

But how do you know which places do that? Do you ask beforehand?

[Chessic_Sense]

@YogSosoth

But how do you know which places do that? Do you ask beforehand?

I ask if I plan to frequent the place. If I go there enough for them to recognize my face, I should recognize where my tip is going, I think.

For my third cent, I’ll say that I think the owner taking a share is shady but the rest of it sounds pretty normal to me. Tipping out certainly is common, and whether the kitchen gets a share depends on the place.

Consider Japanese hibachis. The chef is the one doing all the hard work out front and there’s a cook in the back doing all the prep work. The waitresses deserve the smallest portion of the tip, in my opinion. So there’s at least one example of kitchen staff getting tipped.

[Gary_Robson]

@Gary_T

In my observation, it is unusual for cooks to get minimum wage (they usually command more), and unusual for servers to get minimum wage as a base salary – they usual get some pittance with the expectation being that their tips will bring their total compensation up to minimum wage.

In Montana, minimum wage means minimum wage–employees cannot be paid less than that. Thirty miles away in Wyoming, waiters can be paid a couple of bucks an hour if their tips bring them up to minimum.

I agree that it’s unusual for cooks to get minimum wage. This feels to me like the kitchen staff is being underpaid and the waitstaff is making up the difference out of their tips.

@melodyharmonius

Where I worked, the kitchen staff had their own pay grades - and they got regular reviews and promotions - you start off low man making low wages, but you could quickly work your way up in pay.

There are two pay grades: management and everyone else.

@melodyharmonius

We weren’t allowed to tip out to the hostesses - they were paid a similar pay grade system as the kitchen.

This is a little cafe - no hostess.

That’s part of what seems wrong to me about it. At breakfast, her tip from a four-top will probably be $8.00-$12.00. By the time it gets pooled, she ends up with just a few bucks.

@IAmNotSpartacus

Is the owner waiting on tables or something?

As in many small business, the owner does whatever needs doing. She doesn’t schedule herself for kitchen or front-room service, but backs everyone up when needed and spends the rest of the time ordering food and supplies, doing paperwork, and all those other back-room tasks.

[Maggie_the_Ocelot]

I couldn’t find any references to Montana specifically, but it’s illegal in CA for the owner or management staff to take a cut of the tips, and Starbucks got slapped with a nasty suitabout it.

[Billdo]

That the owner gets tipped out sets off some significant alarm bells. You or your daughter may want to contact your state’s labor department, who can investigate claims like this.

[Markxxx]

Tip sharing is governed by state laws and they vary. When I set up a MIS system in Manhattan at a hotel and the accounting it was a nightmare. NY has strict laws about who can share in tips and the City of NY adds to them

Generally tip sharing must be voluntary and must apply to direct service employees. For instance, the cooks and dishwashers can’t share, but the bus boys could.

Again you need to contact your state Dept of Labor. If you think this place is doing it incorrect, just find the Dept of Labor for your state and look for “wages and hours” and shoot them an email. They’ll let you know if what’s going on is acceptable or not

[anson2995]

Federal law trumps state law. This is not a common practice, and is almost certainly illegal.

From the US Department of Labor:

The law forbids any arrangement between the employer and the tipped employee whereby any part of the tip received becomes the property of the employer. A tip is the sole property of the tipped employee.

There are two exceptions, which I note here for the sake of completeness, even though they clearly don’t apply to the OP’s daughter. One relates to tip credits (related to minimum wage law) and the other relates to tips paid on credit cards. There are strict rules about both of these things are to be handled.

Furthermore:

The requirement that an employee must retain all tips does not preclude a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips, such as waiters, waitresses, bellhops, counter personnel (who serve customers), busboys/girls and service bartenders. Tipped employees may not be required to share their tips with employees who have not customarily and regularly participated in tip pooling arrangements, such as dishwashers, cooks, chefs, and janitors. Only those tips that are in excess of tips used for the tip credit may be taken for a pool. Tipped employees cannot be required to contribute a greater percentage of their tips than is customary and reasonable.

In short, your daughter’s getting totally screwed.

[Snnipe_70E]

@runner pat

Obviously, you’ve never waited tables.

I agree with runner. Not every server is the same. I tip starting at 15% and it either goes up or down. And about 95% of the time it goes up. If the server can make my evening more enjoyabel then I tip more. I do not want a monkey serving me, although sometimes I lhave.

[Xema]

@Oni no Maggie

… Starbucks got slapped with a nasty suit about it.

The link says the judgment was reversed on the basis that the management types sharing the tips were also sharing in the work of serving customers.

[BrotherCadfael]

@YogSosoth

But how do you know which places do that[tip sharing]? Do you ask beforehand?

Some places note it on the menu.

[Maggie_the_Ocelot]

@Xema

The link says the judgment was reversed on the basis that the management types sharing the tips were also sharing in the work of serving customers.

Woops. :smack: My bad for not reading it all the way thru. Thanks for the correction.

[Cyberhwk]

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

In Montana, minimum wage means minimum wage–employees cannot be paid less than that.

Like that here in Washington too. On top of the fact that WA currently has the highest Minimum Wage in the nation at $8.55 an hour, employers have to pay their employees the $8.55 whether they make $1 an hour in tips, or $100 an hour in tips.

[Peremensoe]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

If the food is good, hot, prompt and well-presented, then why shouldn’t the kitchen be rewarded for that?

I’ve never considered that the tips I left were for any of those things. Tips are for service at the table (or the bar). The things you mention are the bill, IMO.

@Gary "Wombat" Robson

I understand the reason for this: if one section ends up getting a few big tables or a bunch of big tippers, the waitstaff pools the tip money and spreads the wealth.

Why should it be spread? If one section gets better tips, that generally means they’re doing a better job. Of course chance plays a role, but that will tend to even out over time.

I’d consider it a point against if I discovered that a place I went was doing this.

[Nametag]

@Cyberhwk

Like that here in Washington too. On top of the fact that WA currently has the highest Minimum Wage in the nation at $8.55 an hour, employers have to pay their employees the $8.55 whether they make $1 an hour in tips, or $100 an hour in tips.

The law is the same in California. BTW, that’s only the highest state minimum wage; San Francisco’s minimum wage is $9.79.

[Gary_Robson]

Thank you for the link, anson2995! That’s great information.

@spark240

Why should it be spread? If one section gets better tips, that generally means they’re doing a better job. Of course chance plays a role, but that will tend to even out over time.

I didn’t say I liked it. I said I understood the logic behind it.

[aruvqan]

@spark240

I’ve never considered that the tips I left were for any of those things. Tips are for service at the table (or the bar). The things you mention are the bill, IMO.

Why should it be spread? If one section gets better tips, that generally means they’re doing a better job. Of course chance plays a role, but that will tend to even out over time.

I’d consider it a point against if I discovered that a place I went was doing this.

Because if you get a large party that sits around chatting for an hour after finishing, that is 1 [or more if it is several tables put together] that are not being turned as normal, which means there is less tipping available. If you get lots of single elderly on dinner specials, and everybody else gets family groups buying off the regular menu and not discounted, ditto.

In general people tip off the final bill not the menu cost, so senior discounts and coupons tend to make for smaller tips. Large parties often don’t realize that they are frequently more ‘demanding’ than 4 tops.

[Philster]

I love SDMB threads were there is a bad vibe over giving one’s earnings to others.

[Lanzy]

My wife was a waitress in her Mom’s place since she was about 13. She worked her way through college as a waitress for awhile after we got married and I say this with absolute conviction, She was the “Perfect” waitress. As a result her tips were much larger than any other waitress there. Three times the restaurants she worked at started sharing tips a few weeks after she started working there. She hates sharing tips and quit at each place to go to another one that did not share. She is a firm believer of earning your own tips not leaching off the ones that do the work correctly.

[Gary_Robson]

Follow-up:

After I passed on the information from this thread to my daughter, she contacted the Montana department of labor. The rules here are even more explicit and restrictive than the Federal laws, to wit:

Tips given to a server by a customer are considered a “gift.” The restaurant may not take any portion of the tips or require the server to share or redistribute the tip money (possible exception is taking a processing fee when it’s on a credit card). If a group of servers decide on their own to set up a sharing arrangement among themselves, that’s fine. It’s a transaction that doesn’t involve the restaurant. But they can’t be required to do so.

We’ll see what happens.

[melodyharmonius]

ooooohhhh - yes - keep us posted!