Is it illegal not to pay waiters/ servers an hourly wage?

[Anonymous]

Updates

1 y

Apparently it is illegal and my boss’ boss is under investigation

[MrOracle]

In most US states, jobs where you are an employee, but you expect to make a significant portion of your income via tips, employers can pay less than minimum wage (there's a minimum limit, and it's set by the state). That said, there are zero states that I know of where they can get away with not paying any hourly wages at all.

Now, if you are an independent contractor (for example, most strippers), it's actually common that the stripper gets no hourly wages from the strip club, and in fact usually has to pay a stage fee that's a set amount for the day. But she will otherwise keep all earnings as gross income (still has to pay taxes and such on it, of course), and in some bars, she may get a cut of whatever alcohol she sells - some clubs sell very overpriced drinks and give the stripper a cut for pushing drink sales. Again, this kind of thing only works for independent contractors, and there are specific things a contractor can't be held accountable for - such as a fixed schedule.

Restaurants tend to have fairly small margins, which means that it doesn't take a lot of mis-management for service to go down in quality, which leads to fewer customers, fewer sales, and the business losing money instead of making money, and when this happens, it's not unusual for owners/management to "get creative" in finding ways to keep the doors open. Effectively stealing wages from your workers is a dirty business, but it happens.

Maybe you heard the story this week of the tech CEO who canceled all employee bonuses for the year, and then showed up with a new Lamborghini. The entire company - every last employee - quit, and are starting their own, essentially identical company, but without the douchbag CEO. It seems like most of their customers are going to move over to the new employee-owned company as well. Oops!

[msc545]

A company can exist without a CEO but it can't exist without employees.

[MrOracle]

@msc545 My company can - I'm the primary worker. But obviously that doesn't work for most companies.

The point is: don't be a dick. Canceling your employee bonuses so you can enrich yourself at their expense is a dick move, and I'm glad he's lost the business overnight because he deserved to.

[msc545]

You can be a health insurance company and sell policies and then refuse to pay claims. If you do that, you will also have to pay for private security now too.

[MrOracle]

@msc545 Yeah. While I don't condone assassinations, I can certainly understand that people are absolutely fed up with corporate leaders who have contempt for their customers and feel like they can just push whatever they want or deny whatever they want and that there will be no consequences. There are a lot of big companies that were successful for decades that are failing right now because of that attitude, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. Look at Disney - they're losing money across nearly every line of business (only their cruise lines are doing decently well), and because of the industries they are in, it takes a VERY long time to make changes, so they've got years of suffering to endure before they can really hope for a turn-around.

[slatyb]

In the US it is, although the federal minimum wage for tipped workers is so small it's effectively zero.

[SleepingHazard]

It should be. There's no system as dumb as this one to be honest.

[SleepingHazard]

Thanks for mh

[Still-alive]

Not illegal. they just don't want to pay them good wages. they're cheap and dicks like that

[Circushowcowboy]

I believe you have to in the US but the hourly wage doesn’t have to match minimum wage

[Abbycado]

Do you take payment in Skittles Littles?

[Circushowcowboy]

@Abbycado 😂 stop bullying

[Abbycado]

[Circushowcowboy]

@Abbycado lmao mmhm

[Abbycado]

That’s not very nice, mister.

[Circushowcowboy]

@Abbycado oh well my sincerest apologies lol

[Abbycado]

Okay, little one. I’ll give a hall pass this one time.

[Circushowcowboy]

@Abbycado *long sigh*

[Abbycado]

I bet it was pretty short in reality 🙃

[Circushowcowboy]

@Abbycado 😂 uuugghhhh

[Agape93]

Schikaniere meinen Zwerg nicht. @Circushowcowboy only I'm allowed to bully you. Maybe Mandy. ♥ my little pretzel

[msc545]

Depending on the laws of the state this is in, it may very well be illegal.

[In_Trance]

You'd have to check local laws on this one I'm pretty sure that it varies region to region

[exitseven]

Yes, everyone who works needs to get paid.

[goaded]

In Germany I'm sure it is.

[Astarlessnightsky]

In most places yes.