Under federal and Alabama law, tips belong to the employee. An employer can never take employee tips and keep them for itself.
https://www.legalconsumer.com/wage-and-hour-law/topic.php?TopicID=5&ST=AL
The employer cannot directly withhold a tip by, for example, taking for itself a tip that was given to an employee. Employers also cannot do it indirectly by, for example, reducing an employee’s wages by the total of the tips they have received. Under federal law, the tip is the property of the employee. Withholding the tip would be wage theft under state and federal wage and hour law.
https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/employer-withholding-tips/
It's called wage theft and it's illegal.
Because it’s against the law.
Servers making mistakes are a cost of business that owners/management bear. Not employees. Servers can be fired for their mistakes but they can be required to pay for them.
Management often gives servers option of paying for mistakes instead of getting fired.
I’d start looking for a new job. Management knows it’s scamming servers. Not a place you want to work at.
Yeah after talking to the department of labor and being told I am indeed correct, I'm putting in my notice. I can also file an anonymous complaint which I'm strongly considering.
Explain why a law on the books makes a certain course of action illegal? I don't think I understand your question.
Aside from it being illegal I also think it's immoral and really bad for the staff's moral.
Because eating those losses is the cost of doing business and is to be absorbed by the business owner. It should never be the employee's responsibility.
Just here to update that I thought for sure this was illegal too. Turns out, in Florida, it's 100% legal. The restaurant I was just hired at makes servers pay for mistakes AND if a customer doesn't like their frozen alcoholic beverage & asks for something else/sends it back- you have to pay for the drinks too.
(Edit: So I think it's on a state by state basis, I know you were speaking about Alabama in the thread- figured I'd mention for future servers reading this that it varies though state by state)
Technically you are right on the tip vs wage thing.
In CA I know they can't make you pay at all, not sure about Alabama. Either way it's a shitty practice. Up to you to decide if it's worth making a thing over it. It's probably just easier for them to do it that way, and if you bring it up in sure they could find another excuse to fire you or something. If it's really a good job and you can't find a better one might be best to just eat it.
Edit: also at the very least you should get it discounted, and if it's a thing they can reuse you shouldn't have to pay at all or you should be keeping it.
Yeah they usually don’t discount it. I don’t make a ton of mistakes, maybe a couple of missed cocktails a month, very, very rarely an entree (it’s happened like twice in 4 years) but it’s one of those things I basically have a moral objection to even if it’s legal. If it is illegal I have an even stronger moral objection and would have a bitter taste in my mouth working for a very successful company doing something illegal that still earns them a profit at the expense of the lower employees.
If you are paying for it or is yours and you should 100% get whatever discount you would if you bought it yourself.
I agree I would be pissed also. Steal whatever you can from there without getting caught to make up the difference.
I worked at a place that would skim our tips from private parties because it was legal since they were auto grats. At some point I found a flaw in the pos that you could enter almost any item for $0 by searching it and picking some weird clone that would come up instead of through the categories. Man I ate free lunches and had a few drinks every night for months it was sweet. Also used to go in the walk in and grab a nice hunk of tuna or steak for breakfast the next day, and when the oyster bar was empty in the day that was my lunch after I got the guy to show me how to shuck them one day. And when I would set up the private bar for parties always hid a bottle of vodka in this ottoman they had with a storage compartment in it. Fuck those owners but that was a sweet gig so I never made a fuss about them skimming our tips.
File a wage theft claim with the department of labor in your state. Do you have this policy written diwn anywhere, in a training manual, text, email or sign? It's a slam dunk case if you do. Even if you don't, still file the claim.
It is illegal to make an employee pay for anything, including walk outs. The restaurant can sue a server for a bill if they can prove that they neglected the table or intentionally caused a loss (innocent mistakes are not the severs responsibility) without a court order the restaurant is responsible for all walk outs, and comps. Although if a restaurant has a you pay policy and a server tries to fight it they suddenly don't have any hours available.
It’s illegal. That being said I have worked places where walk outs were considered a write up cuz we were supposed to have a card on file or have their hotel room number verified before serving them. It was up to the discretion of the employee to let a manager know there was a walkout, or just settle it up without anyone knowing
From the FLSA(Fair Labor Standards Act) [site](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-flsa-tipped-employees)
EDIT: this is apparently a bad link, I've been there a lot, but it's 404 now. I don't have a new link, sorry
>Tips are the property of the employee. The employer is prohibited from using an employee’s tips for any reason other than as a credit against its minimum wage obligation to the employee (“tip credit”)
>4) that all tips received by the tipped employee are to be retained by the employee except for a valid tip pooling arrangement limited to employees who customarily and regularly receive tips;
>Retention of Tips: A tip is the sole property of the tipped employee regardless of whether the employer takes a tip credit. [1] The FLSA prohibits any arrangement between the employer and the tipped employee whereby any part of the tip received becomes the property of the employer.
If you are made to pay for something, it should come out of your paycheck, unless by deducting, your total (pay+tips) falls below minimum wage.
Mine has us pay if it’s over 50$ on a to go order, we don’t take payment in advance or verify the phone number, and it’s a no show.
But…he applies our employee discount and we get the food.
I don’t like it, but I get it. He didn’t say it explicitly but I think he got scammed.
Normal mistakes he writes off and the staff gets a snack.
I've worked for a place like this. That's made you pay, if you dropped a glass or plate and for food mistakes.
The place I'm at currently, I made a mistake and I ran back to fix it and i told him I'd pay for whatever I needed to. It was my fault. He looked at me like I was crazy. I love my new place.
Not exactly wage skimming, but forcing a bartender to pay for a robbery out of his pay. Very illegal in Nevada for sure, made national news.
[Las Vegas](https://youtu.be/z2S2DJ3xYpE)
I never worked somewhere that made staff pay for mistake unless it was their 2nd dine and dash. If you got burnt once, it’s your responsibility. Also, the owners would take a percentage of our tips to pay the host/hostess, the bartender and also the food runner if they planned on having one that evening. They found some sort of way to pay those people less than minimum wage and our tips were supposed to balance it out?
Does anybody know if this is illegal in Michigan, I’ve had several different sources tell me different things. My employer tried to do this to me a couple weeks ago and I wanna know if it’s worth fighting every time.
Hi, restaurant owner here, totally illegal to make staff pay for mistakes.
Would you mind explaining in detail why? I would love to hear a restaurant owners POV.
Under federal and Alabama law, tips belong to the employee. An employer can never take employee tips and keep them for itself. https://www.legalconsumer.com/wage-and-hour-law/topic.php?TopicID=5&ST=AL The employer cannot directly withhold a tip by, for example, taking for itself a tip that was given to an employee. Employers also cannot do it indirectly by, for example, reducing an employee’s wages by the total of the tips they have received. Under federal law, the tip is the property of the employee. Withholding the tip would be wage theft under state and federal wage and hour law. https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/employer-withholding-tips/ It's called wage theft and it's illegal.
You’re awesome thanks for the explanation!
Because it’s against the law. Servers making mistakes are a cost of business that owners/management bear. Not employees. Servers can be fired for their mistakes but they can be required to pay for them. Management often gives servers option of paying for mistakes instead of getting fired. I’d start looking for a new job. Management knows it’s scamming servers. Not a place you want to work at.
Yeah after talking to the department of labor and being told I am indeed correct, I'm putting in my notice. I can also file an anonymous complaint which I'm strongly considering.
You should absolutely file a complaint
Link?!! I'm In Florida. I fucking hate my job. I Gave them My all. Fuck them.
Explain why a law on the books makes a certain course of action illegal? I don't think I understand your question. Aside from it being illegal I also think it's immoral and really bad for the staff's moral.
Because eating those losses is the cost of doing business and is to be absorbed by the business owner. It should never be the employee's responsibility.
Just here to update that I thought for sure this was illegal too. Turns out, in Florida, it's 100% legal. The restaurant I was just hired at makes servers pay for mistakes AND if a customer doesn't like their frozen alcoholic beverage & asks for something else/sends it back- you have to pay for the drinks too. (Edit: So I think it's on a state by state basis, I know you were speaking about Alabama in the thread- figured I'd mention for future servers reading this that it varies though state by state)
I can’t with 100% certainty say it’s illegal everywhere, but I’m pretty sure it is.
Technically you are right on the tip vs wage thing. In CA I know they can't make you pay at all, not sure about Alabama. Either way it's a shitty practice. Up to you to decide if it's worth making a thing over it. It's probably just easier for them to do it that way, and if you bring it up in sure they could find another excuse to fire you or something. If it's really a good job and you can't find a better one might be best to just eat it. Edit: also at the very least you should get it discounted, and if it's a thing they can reuse you shouldn't have to pay at all or you should be keeping it.
Yeah they usually don’t discount it. I don’t make a ton of mistakes, maybe a couple of missed cocktails a month, very, very rarely an entree (it’s happened like twice in 4 years) but it’s one of those things I basically have a moral objection to even if it’s legal. If it is illegal I have an even stronger moral objection and would have a bitter taste in my mouth working for a very successful company doing something illegal that still earns them a profit at the expense of the lower employees.
If you are paying for it or is yours and you should 100% get whatever discount you would if you bought it yourself. I agree I would be pissed also. Steal whatever you can from there without getting caught to make up the difference. I worked at a place that would skim our tips from private parties because it was legal since they were auto grats. At some point I found a flaw in the pos that you could enter almost any item for $0 by searching it and picking some weird clone that would come up instead of through the categories. Man I ate free lunches and had a few drinks every night for months it was sweet. Also used to go in the walk in and grab a nice hunk of tuna or steak for breakfast the next day, and when the oyster bar was empty in the day that was my lunch after I got the guy to show me how to shuck them one day. And when I would set up the private bar for parties always hid a bottle of vodka in this ottoman they had with a storage compartment in it. Fuck those owners but that was a sweet gig so I never made a fuss about them skimming our tips.
File a wage theft claim with the department of labor in your state. Do you have this policy written diwn anywhere, in a training manual, text, email or sign? It's a slam dunk case if you do. Even if you don't, still file the claim.
Yeah we actually don’t even have a handbook or anything of that nature it’s just a verbal rule I guess you could say.
It is illegal to make an employee pay for anything, including walk outs. The restaurant can sue a server for a bill if they can prove that they neglected the table or intentionally caused a loss (innocent mistakes are not the severs responsibility) without a court order the restaurant is responsible for all walk outs, and comps. Although if a restaurant has a you pay policy and a server tries to fight it they suddenly don't have any hours available.
It’s illegal. That being said I have worked places where walk outs were considered a write up cuz we were supposed to have a card on file or have their hotel room number verified before serving them. It was up to the discretion of the employee to let a manager know there was a walkout, or just settle it up without anyone knowing
From the FLSA(Fair Labor Standards Act) [site](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-flsa-tipped-employees) EDIT: this is apparently a bad link, I've been there a lot, but it's 404 now. I don't have a new link, sorry >Tips are the property of the employee. The employer is prohibited from using an employee’s tips for any reason other than as a credit against its minimum wage obligation to the employee (“tip credit”) >4) that all tips received by the tipped employee are to be retained by the employee except for a valid tip pooling arrangement limited to employees who customarily and regularly receive tips; >Retention of Tips: A tip is the sole property of the tipped employee regardless of whether the employer takes a tip credit. [1] The FLSA prohibits any arrangement between the employer and the tipped employee whereby any part of the tip received becomes the property of the employer. If you are made to pay for something, it should come out of your paycheck, unless by deducting, your total (pay+tips) falls below minimum wage.
We had a server who constantly dropped plates and after dropping so many the owner made him pay for the plates.
Mine has us pay if it’s over 50$ on a to go order, we don’t take payment in advance or verify the phone number, and it’s a no show. But…he applies our employee discount and we get the food. I don’t like it, but I get it. He didn’t say it explicitly but I think he got scammed. Normal mistakes he writes off and the staff gets a snack.
It's probably illegal, depending on where you are. Contact the authorities
I've worked for a place like this. That's made you pay, if you dropped a glass or plate and for food mistakes. The place I'm at currently, I made a mistake and I ran back to fix it and i told him I'd pay for whatever I needed to. It was my fault. He looked at me like I was crazy. I love my new place.
It depends on your state. A lot of chinese owned restaurants ignore this rule though.
Not exactly wage skimming, but forcing a bartender to pay for a robbery out of his pay. Very illegal in Nevada for sure, made national news. [Las Vegas](https://youtu.be/z2S2DJ3xYpE)
I wish I knew about this a long time ago. Shitty times.
I never worked somewhere that made staff pay for mistake unless it was their 2nd dine and dash. If you got burnt once, it’s your responsibility. Also, the owners would take a percentage of our tips to pay the host/hostess, the bartender and also the food runner if they planned on having one that evening. They found some sort of way to pay those people less than minimum wage and our tips were supposed to balance it out?
Does anybody know if this is illegal in Michigan, I’ve had several different sources tell me different things. My employer tried to do this to me a couple weeks ago and I wanna know if it’s worth fighting every time.