Here’s a hearty FUCK YOU to any restauranteur who makes servers tip out to the house. I don’t care what you say the money goes to, making your staff PAY YOU to do their JOB is bullshit. It covers walkouts? Fuck that. Walkouts are the cost of doing business. As far as I remember, you hired me to serve food, not to run security. You wouldn’t make retail employees pay for items shoplifted while they’re on the clock, so why should servers have to pay for walkouts? It covers breakages? Fuck that. It’s a restaurant, and unless you are serving your food and drink on paper plates and in plastic cups, stuff is gonna break sometimes. It’s the cost of doing business. House tip outs are illegal in many Canadian provinces and American states. Fuck Nova Scotia for not getting with the program and telling businesses that it is not OK for their employees to have to pay THEM to work. —Restaurant Workers Unite
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2015.
I didn’t realize that we only had one restaurant in Halifax! Alberta. I hear Alberta has two restaurants.
The practice is not illegal although there are rules that apply when the tip money is pooled to ”the house”. Federal tax rules dictate that if tips are “controlled” by the employer, if management collects and then redistributes the money, it is taxable and EI and CPP must be deducted.
I can empathize with you.
As a former restaurant owner tips were always a touchy subject. The house never received any portion of the tips; those are for the team. The only thing I asked is that 10% of server tips were directed to the kitchen staff. It’s a team effort and if your kitchen isn’t performing then server tips are going to be shite and if the servers are slack then the kitchen is going to get in the weeds really quickly.
Walkouts, breakage, food spoilage, waste, portion control, labour hours, overhead, taxes…those were all my problems as the owner and I did not expect staff to contribute tips to cover loses. The only way I would think that could be fair is by offering a share of the ownership of the restaurant to the staff.
I would suggest it is time to find a better place to work.
Good Luck.
Sounds like a perfectly good reason NOT to wait tables. Has anyone challenged this employer? Or called the Department of Labour?
Unionize – then you too can represent the front of the house in a sleeveless tee, and wool beanie perched atop your man-bun.
Being a ‘back of the house’ drone in sector 7G, I used to appreciate the extra beer money I’d get from the ‘tip pool’. But, its also bitches like this that encouraged me to be more particular about how much I now contribute to it…..
Kitchen staff is OK, restaurant owners who site behind the counters on their iPhones all night don’t deserve a portion of anyone’s tips.
I would only agree to tip out the kitchen staff who are earning the same lowly wage as the wait staff. It may be a team effort, as someone else stated, but chefs and sous-chefs make a higher hourly wage than servers.
Servers are not responsible for walkouts, breakage or for making sure theirs bosses salaries are supplemented, but as we are living in the Age of Greed, I foresee the shift to this becoming the norm in this industry.
Here’s what I fear – refugees & immigrants will be exploited by such employees who will pay them a pittance by comparison. And tip jar will go in the employers’ pocket. Many restaurants treat their staff like animals to begin with.
Maybe drop a few lines of this in the restaurant review section?
…
before quitting.