I guess the silver spoon has just been lodged in Lt. Gov. candidate Charlie Copeland’s throat for too long. Who are we kidding? He probably only grubs at the poshest eateries and likely drops Benjis to all his waitpersons.
Posted by Mike Matthews in First State Filth
What a straw man arguement. The wage for tip earners is a base wage, but if the tip earner does not reach the minimum wage with their tips, the business owner has to make up the difference.
So if the waiter (gender-neutral) only makes $3/hr in tips over a pay period, the owner pays them more than $2.33. I waited tables for years, and that’s the law.
Once again we see the belief that since they are just tipped employees, their problems are not worth a few bytes of discussion.
Fact is RJ19958 that employers have override factor on how much tips are declared and can, and are foolish not too, simply type in a new total to prevent them from being forced to chip in.
That still does not preclude the fact that this bill attempts to right a wrong that has been in effect since 1987, and that Charlie Copeland, the candidate who wants us to consider him for Lt. Gov., voted against it for a paltry 0.285 of 1 percent of a profit margin.
Furthermore it offers us a clue as to what will happen if any Republicans with attitudes like RickJ19958 are allowed anywhere near our government. 
Kavips,
There are rumors going around that some establishments are even now making servers pay for the credit card fees! Someone on Delaware Online wrote a blog about how a server at the Chesapeake Inn told them how the servers now have to pay the $2 credit card fee. I asked a friend if this was illegal, and he said it wasn’t illegal. If this is happening in Delaware, I think some legislation ought to be passed.
By the way, Senator Conner, (R) voted for the bill, so I really did not eviscerate all the Senate GOP’s… Just the faction led by Copeland…….
Is this guy really, I mean really running for office?
And they with the help of the NJ’s Williams had the gall to make fun of Protack way back when… At least Protack can look at himself in the mirror and say he stands for “something”.
Mike, I will look into it. It is illegal, It is just that with Republican led Budget cuts to our enforcement agencies, their is no one left to look into it…..
As for those servers, they are left with the choice of either paying the surcharges while staying employed, or looking for another place.
If one lived in Chesapeake City, it would make economic sense to pay the surcharges and continue working.
But to stop the practice, especially in the Blue State of Maryland, all anyone of those servers has to do, is stop by their local Department of Labor.
Word of advice, however : Replace your name with the manager’s name when you sign the complaint. It’s fun.
I can assure you it is illegal to force servers to declare more than they have made. It is likewise illegal to under-declare tips. From my experience, those who might complain about their declared tips being amended illegally may be forgoing that act so that the underdeclaring they do doesn’t fall into scrutiny.
What I wrote over at kavips:
Tim, as a waiter/bartender, please allow me to educate you on how our tips are declared. At the downtown eatery I presently work at, we do not claim our own tips, because management does this for us. They claim ALL of our credit card tips, which show up on a nightly report, and they claim 12% of our cash sales, which also show up on the nightly report. So let me give you an example of what I make on a night my customers are REALLY generous. Say I have $1000 in sales and make 20% tips. In todays electronic society, I usually have ALL transactions completed with a cc. But let’s just say 75% of tonight’s sales were with a cc. So I make 200 bucks tonight, right? Oh wait, I have to tip out the support staff 5% of my sales. So shit, now I’m down to $150 on $1000 in sales. I just went from 20% to 15% faster than Bill Lee can kill a six-pack. Next comes the taxes… If $150 of my $200 in tips are cc tips, well all of that gets declared. The other $250 in cash sales gets declared at a 12% rate, which is 30 bucks. So the restaurant is declaring $180 for me when I am actually walking with $150. Remember, THIS IS ON AN IDEAL NIGHT! Furthermore, fine establishments such as the one I work in, they don’t give overtime. Say I work behind the bar for 30 hours and waiting tables for 20, I don’t get ot because I didn’t work in the same “department” for 40 hours. Not that I would see the OT pay in my check, though. It would just be nice to get the extra money to pay some of my taxes at the end of the year.
Although I gripe about all of this, I do enjoy working in the service industry. I plan on moving to something else when I finish up school, but I do like it for now. People just don’t realize how bad we get fucked though.
call it -
Your boss is breaking the law. An establishment can’t declare your tips for you. New legislation isn’t needed to cover a law that’s being broken - report your boss.
report your boss …
then get fired.
Rick 19958
You really do live in la la land…..
RickJ19958 -
I too worked in restaurants for years and I never had my wages augmented due to low tips/earnings (lunch shifts were notorius for low earnings at one restaurant where I worked). I wish I had known back then.
I will say that I worked at Steak & Ale on Kirkwood Highway when Karen Peterson filed a class action lawsuit against the restaurant because management forced us to pay out an excessive amount of our tips into the “tip share” pool that went to the non-tipped hostesses and busboys. My roomate at the the time was fired for some baseless allegation beacuse they knew that he was one of the people that dropped the dime on them to the dept. of labor.
I was a waitress for about 15 minutes. I felt the public treated waitstaff terribly, some left $1.00 no matter what the check or how great the service.
My niece works at a fine restaurant at the beach. Last year she did great in tips, this year the economy has taken a big bite from tips. Customers are leaving half of what they gave up last year.