Tipped Workers
Many of our current and former clients are restaurant servers, catering workers, valet drivers, and other workers whose income includes getting tips from customers of their employer. Many of these folks are paid less than the minimum hourly wage of $7.25 (the law allows the employer to pay as little as $2.13 per hour) and sometimes they are not even paid that amount by the employer because they were required to work off-the-clock. The law requires that tipped workers must receive all of the tips that they earn (although a valid tip pool with other customer-facing workers is allowed) and forbids sharing those tips with anyone who is at a managerial level.
If you are a tipped worker, your employer may be stealing your pay in several ways:
- Taking a portion of your tips instead of paying them all to you
- Requiring you to work “off-the-clock,” that is, work when not clocked in
- Not paying you time-and-a-half when you work more than 40 hours per week
- Requiring you to do non-tipped work for more than 20% of the time you work
- Underreporting the tips that you are paid
- Requiring you to share your tips with managers
- Requiring you to share your tips with other workers without a valid tip pool
If you have questions about your pay and would like to discuss them with an attorney, give us a call at (866) BUENKER or click HERE
