Tipped Employee Issues

Do you work for a restaurant or bar? Are you paid less than $7.25 per hour, plus customer tips? For example, are you paid $2.13 per hour plus tips, or $5.00 per hour plus tips? If you answered yes, you are likely what is called a “tip credit” employee. Tip credit employees often work as servers or bartenders.

Here are some of the ways restaurant businesses break federal wage laws for tip credit employees, like servers and bartenders:

• Requiring servers or bartenders to share some of their customer tips with employees who never interact with customers, like cooks, dishwashers, expediters, silver/glassware polishers, bar-backs, etc.
• Requiring servers or bartenders to share some of their customer tips with managers.
• Deducing money from servers’ and bartenders’ pay for uniforms, broken dishes or glassware, cash register shortages, and unpaid customer meals and bar tabs.
• Not paying additional wages then the customer tips earned by servers and bartenders are not enough to make up the difference between the lower tipped hourly rate (for example, an hourly rate of $2.13 per hour) and the full $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage.

Another issue our firm often sees is restaurants paying servers and bartenders less than the statutory minimum wage for work performed before the restaurant is open to serve customers and work performed after customers are no longer being served or in the restaurant. For example, stocking work, janitorial and cleaning work, and even food preparation work. We argue that this type of work is non-tipped work and should be paid at the statutory minimum wage (for example, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour) and not at the lower tipped hourly wage (for example $2.13 per hour, plus tips).

Our firm is regularly investigating restaurants and bars across the country for these types of wage violations.

If you worked in a restaurant or bar and believe you may have been paid incorrectly, we are happy to speak with you. All consultations are free and confidential. You may reach us at (615) 244-2202.