Call me cynical, but couldn’t the business just keep all the tips and make up any tip figure to tell their employees?
In: Economics
The servers get to see a lot of the signed bills before the management does Also, while they occasionally get stiffed, it would be highly unusual for them to get zero tips in a day. And the credit card receipts still exist if there is a dispute. Wage theft is underenforced, but if a company gets caught, it can go very badly for them.
This is not to say that the owners don’t skim tips. They’re just more likely to do it by doing something like distributing the tips among all the staff and/or just saying management gets a share, and daring the servers to do anything about it.
Well, if the employer withholds the tips it is wage theft, and they will get in _serious_ trouble for that one. Withholding tips is a crime, and if an employer does it (outside of a few narrow exceptions) the employee is owed both lost tips and damages.
But ultimately, you don’t know for sure. You just have to trust that a business is following the law here, just like you trust they are following dozens of other laws for their business.
In the past I have just asked the employee if they really receive their tips. And I was actually at a place where she said yes out loud, but she looked at me and gave me a little head shake telling me no. So I ended up giving her a cash tip.
It’s hard to know for sure. There are cases of employers stealing employee tips, or pooling them inappropriately.
If you fill out a CC slip, every restaurant I know of will have a system where the employees get that tip pretty immediately. And even if they don’t, they saw the tip and know what it is.
No harm in tipping cash though
You don’t. And it does happen that employers sometimes keep some of the tips that are supposed to go to the employees.
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