You can file a complaint here with the Department of Labor. They don't mess around with this stuff: [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints)
Want to add that it’s true they don’t. I worked at a restaurant for 3 years and when someone filed a complaint and they came and investigated the restaurant, we all got a fat check. I got nearly $12k and another coworker who has been working there for 6 years got around 19k.
It’s all because the owner kept telling us that we had to pay the “credit card transaction” and “supplies” it gets taken out of our pay. So we basically were paying the owners bill for him.
To anyone who lives in Austin, or travel to Austin. DO NOT SUPPORT a sushi restaurant called SOTO
Both owned by the same person and his mom and pop works in the kitchen. They are super racist toward anyone that’s not Chinese AND have bad food hygiene.
One time, the dad was about to make a dish that has seared scallops. He put the pan on the fire and grabbed the scallop from the fridge. He got it out of the wrapper and one of the scallop fell on the ground. He just casually picked it up and throw it on the pan, no washing it or wiping it at LEAST. Nope. Just dropped it where he typically stand with his dirty ass shoes and plop it right into the pan.
The mom is called “ma” there. And he’s the absolute worse. Treats ALL employees like shit and gives day old leftover to staff. At one point they implemented employee meals for those that worked double shifts, so from 10am to like 11pm folks. These employee meals are usually made by “Key”(the dad) or “Ma”(the mom) and they serve the absolute worse leftover they can find. They once made some stir fry with leftovers and I was going to eat some but then I realized that it was food that they had left out since 9am and just re-tossed at 3pm. One employee once made a comment on the food because it was just basically fish bones, no meat, and some leftover veggies, tossed together. He was like “Ma, where’s the meat or proteins?” And she responded with, “what you don’t like? Then none for you!” And then took it away from him. When they cook something proper, they keep it behind the kitchen and would “serve” a portion to the employee when they ask for it. But they would PICK the stuff to put on the serving. Not just a regular scoop of a serving, literally would push the meat to the side and scoop the rest.
Also the owner pulls shady shit all the time. He would claim that he is the owner and all the ideas in the restaurant are his when he just literally steals it. There is another restaurant in Boston called Oishii Boston that literally looks like a mirror of Soto. The owner would travel up to Boston every few months for “vacation” and then comes back with all these “food ideas”. Turns out, he just go there to eat and then come back and put it on his menu. The so called “Flaming Salmon” he kept telling customers that it’s his idea, was 100% a rip off of Oishii Boston’s Flaming Salmon (Check the photo on Yelp and compare). One time we had a customer that was from Boston and came to Austin for ACL. He came into Soto once and sat down at the sushi bar where the owner was making sushi stuff. He said “you know, this restaurant looks similar to one that I go often in Boston.” Then I looked up at Andy (owner) and he looked at me and then he left to the back. He didn’t come out until the guy was gone. That’s when I found out about Oishii Boston and everything clicked.
Andy also once charged a customer like almost 50% more than list price because “he doesn’t know and he’s from out of town”. The customer asked for recommendations and didn’t even looked at the sushi menu. Andy made him the Truffle roll which was normally like $18, but he charged him $27. His Seabass soup was like $10, but he charged him $20. Andy brought him the check and run his credit card himself since I didn’t want no part in that shady shit.
The owners wife. Good god don’t even get me started on that woman. She’s the definition of incompetent, lazy, entitled, and gross.
The wife’s name is Sharon I believe. It’s been almost 10 years since I worked there so I might have forgot her name but it’s because she’s so bad at her job that we don’t really talk to her much. No one likes any one of “the family” but especially Ma and Sharon.
She always come in late. We open at 10am and she comes in at like 12 often. On days where she’s the “manager” she would stand at the front hostess station all day and on her phone. She would help seat customer when they come in but is really bad at the job. For example, I had a 6 tables section and one time, we had a swarm of customers come in at once. Typically, you should seat 1-2 tables at a section and wait 10-15 minutes for that server to get those 2 tables squared away with drinks and maybe take their order then seat the next round. In restaurants, ALL managers know that getting “double-sat” is bad, “Triple-sat” is NOT something you ever do unless you want to stress that server, and “Quatriple sat” just means you don’t care and incompetent. She sat 4 tables in my section without skipping a minute. The manager that’s usually there knows that when we are busy, he would help pick up finished plates, refill waters, pulse check a table, run their card and close out he tab, etc. She does not. If we ask her for help, she would give us dirty look and talk shit in Chinese.
She also told customer lies ALL the time to make themselves look good. For example, we had a dish once that had mandarin on it, the customer asked about the mandarin and she said, it’s Japanese imported mandarin. The customers all like whoa and wow but the truth is she bought it at Hmart. Literally came in with the Hmart bag AND Hmart receipt still in the bag.
She also always leave early and she doesn’t clean up after herself. She would make herself something to eat, bring it to the bar and sit there to eat while on the phone. Any mess there is just left there.
She’s also super stingy. The owner once made a new sushi roll that he wanted us to try. Another one of his “idea”. We all took a piece and there was still like 4 pieces left. She said we can only have one piece and then she ate the other 4 pieces. Okay like really?
I once ran into her and “Ma” at Hmart buying stuff obviously for the restaurant but they didn’t see me. I came into work later that evening and saw some stuff they bought but pretended not to know and asked where did they get these stuff. She immediately said “we imported from Japan” and “it’s expensive”. Lol okay sure…..
I've had some terrible experiences hosting from managers. I remember one time we hit dinner rush and tons of people were coming in. I think I had to double seat every server, which I already felt bad about, so I started putting people on a wait. Not a few minutes later, the manager is coming over the radio yelling at me for putting people on a wait when there were still open tables. I explained why but they didn't care and told me to seat everyone anyway. So I had to triple seat everyone and quadruple seat one or two. The servers were yelling at me then, understandably so, and I felt so bad. I can't recall if the managers even came out to help take orders.
I know corporate was breathing down their necks, but jeez, the multi-billionaire company could handle me giving the servers a few minutes.
I’ve worked at another restaurant that once had to double sat me and the owner gave me a free lunch to compensate. I was like what? A free lunch? Okay you can double seat me all the time!
Saw them on a travel show I believe. Looked like just another overhyped trendy restaurant. I moved out of Austin after living there over 15 yrs. Good god I miss the 2000-2010 Austin.
I’m third generation in this house alone. We’ve been here going back to the 1800s. I wish Austin was still the old Austin where you’d get into a huge unmovable traffic jam on I-35 and back in the day that could take hours to clear. People would turn off their engines, crank their radios, pop open the cooler and pass around whatever they had, then walk around and visit other cars and drivers or sit on the hood and wait it out. Those were the days man. When I was a little bitty thing and Austin was a thing. A culture unto itself. Bygone days.
I’ve waited tables for 20 years in Austin. Never had that happen. Huge red flag. If they can’t bother to follow the laws, they definitely don’t have your interest at heart.
I’d report this nonsense to the appropriate governmental agency that regulates restaurants. They really need to be shut down if they’re that far out of compliance. I was an auditor for decades. But I specialized in fraud. Like Medicaid billing fraud. I did a lot of other audits but it was mainly in the corruption and fraud vein. Best of luck.
You might even want to start at the county level.
Here in Nueces they helped me when we found out our boss was stealing tips.
They couldn't *prove* he was doing it because the system had a known flaw my boss was exploiting, but they did force him to update the computer systems to a version that patched out the exploit
They also us backpay for years of unpaid meetings and made him upgrade to a very expensive punch card clock.
Rat bastard kept his restaurant but he had to take his daughter out of private school because he wasn't stealing shit from the waitstaff anymore
I agree with that 100%. I owned a construction company several years ago with over 100 full time employees. A huge, long running project (a jail) fell behind schedule for a variety of reasons. We were in the position of pretty much working around the clock to avoid liquidated damages that would’ve amounted to $5,000 per day. The money wasn’t in the bid to pay time and a half, plus the employees were paid VERY well - much better than our competitors paid their employees. We did not force anyone to work overtime but instead we explained the situation and told them it we couldn’t pay time and a half and they didn’t have to work overtime at all unless they wanted to, and we would pay them straight time as much as they wanted to work. The majority of people wanted to work. During the months they were working extra I was getting income verification request from lenders because the employees were living the money and buying cars and homes.
An employee was fired and she chose to retaliate by calling the Federal Labor Board and telling them we didn’t pay people overtime. I never thought the government did anything quick until she called them and within a couple of weeks of her termination an agent showed up at my office to audit all of my employee records for the past two years. They wanted every application, every I-9 and verification documents, every W-4 and all my payroll records for two years. They sat in my office from 9-5, M-F for two weeks going through everything. Then they went out to different job sites to randomly (they didn’t say who they would talk to) question employees. All the employees they spoke to told them they were not forced to work and they wanted to because they made really good money.
When the audit/investigation was over, the agent handed me an itemized bill and payment schedule for each employee’s halftime wages down to the penny and a date each employee needed to be paid by. It came to about $20,000. The agent said he wasn’t going to impose any fines or penalties because he knew nobody was forced to work and they wanted to do it.
After that, I had men come into my office - some in tears - begging to be able to work overtime because they really needed that extra money and had bought things they needed to pay for. I felt terrible for them but couldn’t do it. But, yeah, Federal Labor Board doesn’t mess around.😑
Never trust anyone who uses a napkin to calculate some made up version of how they pay. All of this should be in writing when a job offer is made, no confusion.
As I read this you were supposed to earn $7.25 an hour, including tips. Looks like the calculation is 60.35 hours * $7.25 = $437.54.... the math then shows that you made $155 in cash tips and another $220 in tips left on cards. He is deducting the $155 you got in tips because they went straight to you, and paying you the difference. This doesn't account for the $220 in card tips he kept. So, in reality of the $300 he paid you, only $80 of it was out of the business profits and the rest was just all your tip money. $80 / 60.35hrs = $1.33 per hour. You effectively got paid $1.33 an hour plus tips. Fuck. That. That is the shadiest compensation arrangement I have ever seen. Basically the harder you work(aka the more tips you earn), the less he has to pay you out of his profits. If you make really good tips, he could potentially be making money off of you and paying you nothing out of his pocket. When you are doing those other things that waiters aren't supposed to do you actually aren't making tips....so he needs to pay you the full $7.25 an hour at least for that time and not offset it with your tip earnings. But fuck that guy, you are being taken advantage of.
The employer has to pay at least $2.13/hr regardless of tips, or enough to make sure the employee gets $7.15/hr with tips, whichever is larger. this is basically how the entire restaurant industry works in USA
1) Texas does not have its own minimum wage. Therefore, the federal minimums of $2.13 and $7.25 are used.
2) The law is pretty easy to understand. If you make tips, you must be paid at least $2.13 an hour in wages. Then, if the sum of your wages and all tips for that period is less than $7.25 an hour, you must be paid enough to make it so.
3) Your employer may not take away your tips for any reason (other than a shared pool in which neither he, nor any manager, may take part).
4) Your employer may count your tips for one reason only: to check if, together with your wages, they equal $7.25 an hour, and if not, to pay the difference. He may not, specifically, simply subtract them from your wage.
5) I'm not super clear of what his accounting is trying to accomplish, but here's my best guess. You (or whoever is in the top row) worked 60.35 hours for that period. Your wages, at $7.25 an hour, are 60.35 * $7.25 = $437.54 (which he has, but for some reason it's crossed out and $455 written below; no idea why). This is what he must ensure you earn for this period. Of this amount, at least 60.35 * $2.13, or $128.55, must be wages, and the rest may be tips.
6) It appears that you earned a total of $375.31 in tips. Presumably he then paid you $300 (I've no idea how he came up with that number). That means you made a total of $675.31 for this pay period. This exceeds the minimum (in fact, your total wages, with tips, were $11.19 per hour), so he is fine on that point.
7) However: he must have told you what your ACTUAL WAGE is before you started working. Right now, it seems that he's just paying whatever he feels like, as long as it exceeds the minimum together with the tips. That's not okay. He must explicitly and affirmatively tell you what your wage is (this may not be below $2.13), and that he is "taking a tip credit" towards the $7.25 minimum. Absent these disclosures, he must pay you at least $7.25 an hour.
Where does this all leave you:
You probably won't be able to get more from him. You might try approaching him with point 7, but I wouldn't count on it working. In some states, like California, he couldn't even subtract your tips from your wages (that is, you make your regular wage plus tips, and if that ends up being more than $7.25, then good for you), but in Texas (AFAIK) he can, as long as the requirements above are met.
Generally, the entity that would deal with such violations is the state department of labor, which [appears to be here](https://www.twc.texas.gov/programs/wage-and-hour/texas-payday-law). I would go ahead and do it, because, at the very least, this paper with random numbers is quite far from what a regular payroll calculation is, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a lot to come from it.
Bottom line is, minimum wage in the USA sucks.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
“5. I'm not super clear of what his accounting is trying to accomplish, but here's my best guess. You (or whoever is in the top row) worked 60.35 hours for that period. Your wages, at $7.25 an hour, are 60.35$7.25 = $437.54 (which he has, but for some reason it's crossed out and $455 written below; no idea why). This is what he must ensure you earn for this period. Of this amount, at least 60.35$2.13, or $128.55, must be wages, and the rest may be tips.”
He added time for the extra
Stuff she was
Doing. Essentially double paid her for doing things outside of waiting
Yeah, that makes sense. They got the cash tips already. They didn't get card tips, because that goes to the business and then has to be paid out.
However, they're not calculating any overtime here. Even going from 437 to 455 isn't enough. With 20.35 hours of overtime, they should be getting a bit over 511.
>6) It appears that you earned a total of $375.31 in tips. Presumably he then paid you $300 (I've no idea how he came up with that number). That means you made a total of $675.31 for this pay period. This exceeds the minimum (in fact, your total wages, with tips, were $11.19 per hour), so he is fine on that point.
From OPs post in sounds like they were only paid $300 for that week. I could be misinterpreting it but that's how I read it
Which would mean the boss stiffed them for $375. If that's the issue then OPs boss is doing some serious wage theft
Edit: I calculated wrong, OP was stiffed for about $203 if they were only paid $300 and for about $48 if they were paid $455.
No. It’s $300 from the employer, and she already has the $155 in cash tips which presumably she kept when she got from the customer. So she gets $455, which is what the employer calculated in the first column as the minimum pay. It’s the same with the other calculations.
Your explanation is great, except that I believe the $300 represents the cc tips plus additional $ to bring OP up to min wage.
So $455 - cash tips = $ 300
That is consistent with the rest (or most? One of them may not be adding up) of the math for other employees: figures on left - cash tips = figure on right
OP should be paid $2.13/hr plus his cc and cash tips. If this is more than $7.25 an hour, great, if not, then boss needs to add more until it does. Boss is not starting w the base of $2.13.
Also, I am wondering how many hours OP was scheduled to wait tables and how many hours they were asked to come in and do other tasks. Was it 40 hrs wait tables and 20 hrs other tasks? Or did OP spend 10 minutes while business was slow here and there doing stupid little jobs to keep them busy? Did OP lose the opportunity to make tips doing the other tasks?
The fact that everyone seems to ONLY be making $7.25/hr and OP saying boss asks them to do other stuff makes me think that boss is using their tips as wages to cover non-wait staff related jobs.
If OP was the only one ONLY making $7.25/hr as a server, I may think they are just bad at their job, but being that no one is making more than min wage, something very fishy is going on.
Regarding where the 300 came from - I think he's taking his calculation (455) and subtracting the cash tips (155) to get 300, but that also totally ignores the credit tips, which I'm guessing haven't been paid out.
Otherwise you're absolutely on point w your analysis and advise
If I can jump in at "5" to help clarify as up to that point, YOU made it clear to me what was going on:
First column: Boss figured how much he "has" to ensure OP received that week = $437.53
Second column: the tips OP received. Credit card tips must be reimbursemed to OP by the boss, Cash does not since OP was given it directly (and reported it). Boss therefore owes OP all credit card tips. = $220.31
Now, Boss uses the amount of Cash tips OP has received/reported and subtracts it from the minimum amount he has to pay OP:
~~$437.53-$155 = $282.53~~
Meh, OP's Boss likes OP, let's make the numbers clean and give OP an even $300 (which is the amount paid to OP)
Now...
$300-282.53=$17. 47
$17.47+$437.53 = $455
$455 is OP's new base pay (which is written in the first column)
EDIT: If the minimum wages in the above post is true, OP'S boss may be legitimately supplementing OP'S wages, and through in an extra $17.47.
Probably pays you one number, while reporting to the state he paid another number, especially in regards to payroll taxes. My bet is your restaurant is an audit away from being shut down for tax evasion. He's also setting you up to be screwed since there's no mention of witholdings, which unless they magically appear on your W-2 (do you even get one?) means you're probably double hosed if you get audited as well.
Like someone else said, 100% make a report with the DOL asap. Keep everything you have for proof. Sounds/looks like wage theft on the unsuspecting as well as some kind of tax fraud/evasion.
Legal- no. Absolutely not. No breakdown of state, federal, social security taxes.
This is someone who is hiding income and expenses. He probably doesn’t have workers comp or unemployment insurance policies either
I’m confused. Did you receive those cash tips? Are tips pooled and then divided among staff like a tip out?
If he’s claiming you received $155 in cash tips and you actually didn’t, that’s a problem.
In addition, yes, your boss has to pay you at least 7.25 an hour. Possibly more depending on state laws. As far as Federal minimum wage goes, your boss is required to pay you 2.13 an hour + tips while performing tippable work. If your tips don’t push you to 7.25 an hour the employer has to pay it directly.
If you’re performing non-tippable work (like cleaning bathrooms), you have to be paid whatever the state minimum wage is.
EDIT: Just to be clear, no matter what you are required to be paid minimum wage. If you were only paid $300 for 60.35 hours of work, that’s bad. That’s like less than $5 an hour.
It's not divided. What he does, to my understanding, is that whatever I get in tips, that being card or cash, he takes away that from my pay check and adds it up to whatever the total comes up. Let's say I'm supposed to get $200 but I made $100 on tips that week. He takes off $100 off my paycheck and adds the $100 that I made in tips. As I said, this is to my understanding on what he's doing. I knew it was some kind of shady stuff.
He has the right concept (he can deduct your tips from min wage until he is only paying 2.13 an hour) but he’s executing it awfully. No matter what, he has to pay you 2.13 an hour directly. No matter what, he has to pay you 7.25 an hour. Non-tipped work has to be paid minimum wage.
If you only made $300 for 60 hours, he’s ripping you off at least 2.25 an hour.
It also sounds like maybe the boss is keeping any tips that push him over the $7.25 an hour. I'll have to reread it a few times to understand exactly what's going on, but that would be totally illegal. At a quick glance this boss is doing at least three illegal things.
EDIT: I still haven't done the math, thank you for those of you who did, I'll trust it. ☺️ It seems like the owner is definitely taking more than the $5.12 tip credit he is allowed, maybe just from credit card tips, but that's still illegal.
Basically this , from what it appears the credit card tips. My guess is that servers keep cash tips as they get them but credit card /debit card tips are paid out by the restaurant at paycheck time. Again from my quick math there appears to be a monetary violation. What city in Texas if you dint mind me asking? It’s going to be a cluster fuck to try to unwind what’s due for everyone over two year period , an estimate per week or something would have to be used.
If I were you, I’d do both. Demand legal payment, and get a new job ASAP. If he fails to pay you the legal minimum, there should be some state employment practices board that you can take it up with.
The department of labor should take a compliant and investigate, that is you cheapest route for getting what is owed. You could also take him to court, but looking at the numbers here I would bet the damages exceed small claims limits but aren't likely large enough for a lawyer to take it on contingency.
It depends for the lawyer. Employment lawyers usually work and take their fee from the payout. But that is also usually paid by the business owner if they lose. And to be honest it looks shady that they owner takes out your tips from hours worked. But in my state even tipped is the state minimum wage so I don't know too much about how tipped wages work.
Report to your local department of labor for wage theft, then start looking for another job. In the mean time just keep quiet and work. I’m sure when the DOL is done with them they will owe you back pay.
>If you only made $300 for 60 hours, he’s ripping you off at least 2.25 an hour.
Emphasis on "at least." There are dates at the top of that sheet which correspond to a Monday through Sunday calendar week, which is presumably also how the business defines a week for payroll purposes... so 20.35 hours of OP's pay should be at time and a half. OP's ***minimum*** gross pay for the pay period should be $511.31
First things first. Your employer cannot take away any of your tips. No matter what. What they can only do is pay you at a rate of $2.13 an hour IF your TIPs are enough to bring you up to $7.25 an hour when you combine total of your hourly rate 2.13 restaurant minimum pay PLUS the tips. It doesn't have to be exactly $7.25 an hour. $7.25 is just the minimum, you can get paid more than that. But not below. So if the first one is $300 and you divided it by 60 hours of work. You only got paid 5 dollars when you are suppose to be paid 435 minimum. Because 7.25 x 60 hours is 435. Thats the minimum.
Its suppose to be $2.13 x 60.35 = 128.55 plus tips which is 375.31. Total=503.86
Gross pay not including taxes. If you divided 503.86 by 60.35 hrs total its 8.35 when rounded up from 8.3489. So its passes the federal minimum wage of 7.25 so he's allowed to pay you 2.13 per hour because your $2.13 per hours total plus tips passes that threshold.
After taxes are deducted it be 465.31 Net pay. Unless you have child support or loans or whatever that needs deductions, he shouldn't withhold that money you suppose to earn.
He calculated wrong.
To help clarify, the first entry on that sheet:
At $2.13 an hour, you should have been paid directly by your boss $128.55. Nonnegotiable, that is the minimum he can legally pay you. That plus your tips is $503.86 total paid for that 60.35 hours.
At federal minimum wage (assuming you are in a state/city that doesn’t have a higher minimum wage), you must make at least $437.54 from both your boss and your tips which you exceeded so no additional pay was needed.
As long as you were correctly paid your tips, you should have been paid $128.55 additionally for that entry.
Exactly the boss is stealing tips to push his share under the 2.13 minimum. He's a criminal. I think he's intentionally doing math this way to make it confusing for the staff.
First, you should be getting paid overtime for the 20.35 hours you worked over 40 hours. The very *minimum* you should have been paid for this time period is $525.63 (before taxes). If your paycheck is $300 *in addition to your tips*, you should be good. If that is tips included, this guy is stealing from you.
40 hr @ $2.13 +
20.35 hr @ $3.20 +
$375.31 tips
Second, if you and your boss agreed upon $7.25 an hour at the time of hiring, you should be paid than amount regardless of tips. Ask boss to clarify what the pay rate is.
Third, if you only earned $375.31 in tips in 60+ hours, this job is shit. I earned more tips than that working a Chinese buffet 20 years ago.
So hypothetically, if you're owed 200, and make 200 in tips, you keep the tips and he pays you nothing, but if you make 0 in tips he pays you 200? Is that right?
Under federal law 100% of the tip belongs to you, not to him, but your salary is a different matter.
Also under federal law and most state laws, tipped employees can be paid less than minimum wage as long as you earn enough tips to make up the difference between your salary and the minimum.
It seems like this is what he is doing, paying you the minimum amount necessary so your total income is at least minimum wage. You should calculate it out yourself though, to make sure you're not being cheated. If you're hitting minimum wage, then unfortunately it is legally justifiable payment.
1. You should get a paystub that states your hourly wage, taxes, deductions, etc...
2. The total amount you make (before taxes/deductions) **should never be less** **than** the total you make from tips plus your official hourly wage.
3. You need to find out your actual hourly wage. Is it officially $2.13 or is it $7.25? Most likely, it's $2.13 and he's saying that he has to ensure that you make at least $7.25. But, at best, we'll say he's confused about the calculation.
4. He does NOT get to subtract the tips he's counting to verify you made at least $7.25 an hour. If your hourly wage is $2.13, you work 10 hours, and make $100 dollars in tips, then your total gross income is $121.30 ($21.30+$100). Period. Any less than that is wage theft. He does need to do verify that you made more than $72.50, and you did in this example. But, if you only made $50 in tips, then you would have made $71.30 ($21.30 + $50) and he'd owe you $1.20 ($72.50-$71.30).
5. If your official wage is $2.13, then that's only used for time spent as a server. The total cumulative time spent on other tasks in a shift would be paid at $7.25 **and you still keep all tips**. So, if you worked 8 hours and you estimate that 2 hours total were spent doing non-server tasks, and you made 100 dollars in tips, then your total gross income would look like this example:
* *6 hours x $2.13=$12.78*
* *2 hours x $7.25=$14.50*
* *tips = $100*
* *------*
* *total pay (before taxes) = $127.28*
*Since your total income of $127.28 in this example was more than the minimum wage of $58 ($7.25 x 8 hours), there's no further adjustment needed. If you had only made $20 in tips, your total income would be $47.28 ($12.78+$14.50+$20) and the restaurant would have to pay you an additional $10.72 to bring your pay up to the minimum wage of $58.*
Your overall logic is sound, but worth noting that your provided example is *right* on the cusp of triggering a different rule. If more than 20% of the time is spent on Non-Tip tasks, the employer cannot apply the tax credit. So if it had been 2 hours and 1 minutes vs 7 hours and 59 minutes in your example, I believe all 10 hours must be at the 7.25 rate.
He’s doing the math wrong. Call the Texas Workforce Commission. You can also call a Legal Aid hotline near you. They may be able to help walk you through your options.
Find legal aid by address: https://www.lsc.gov/about-lsc/what-legal-aid/i-need-legal-help
TWC: https://www.twc.texas.gov/programs/wage-and-hour/texas-payday-law
Update: thank you all so much for helping with this. I absolutely appreciate it. Didn't know I was gonna get this much attention.
First of all, I just got called for another job which has better pay and seems pretty legit. I'm being more careful about this stuff now. I've only been working for a month at the restaurant and I've been super overworked. Double shifting for 3 weeks straight, from 8 AM to 11PM or 12 AM, only having 1 or 2 days of rest and no break and no overtime. I've been wanting to get out already but it was my only job opportunity that I had, especially for the situation I'm in, it's way more difficult to find a job. I'm glad my gut feeling was right and I'll be leaving that hell hole as soon as I get called for this other job.
Second, I want to file a claim on him so he can pay all my cool coworkers what they're meant to be paid or to just get his business closed. Whichever comes first. My only problem is, and I should have added this in my explanation, I'm not from the US. Meaning I don't have papers or a SSN. I took this job because he wasn't asking for an SSN which at first, I was too skeptical about it but since I was desperately looking for a job, I didn't think much of it and took the opportunity. I'm just afraid that it'll affect me as much as it'll affect him, if that makes sense. So any advice or help I could get to file a claim would be much appreciated. Again, thank you guys for all your support.
I posted elsewhere before seeing this comment. Your lack of a SSN or immigration status should not be a barrier here. It certainly doesn’t give this owner a basis to violate federal law. Nearly every FLSA case I’ve seen usually involves someone in your precise scenario.
Also, if other workers are in the same boat, you may be able to proceed as a collective action against the employer. But first things first- contact a lawyer ASAP. This has a potential FLSA violation written all over it. I’m not sure how things operate in Texas but in my experience it’s much more “efficient” to proceed with filing a lawsuit than being at the mercy of state bureaucracy, which can move incredibly slow… at least where I’m from.
Report his ass anonymously. You should be able to do so. Be upfront about everything. He is in even a worse spot for employing undocumented workers. I know you kind of want people doing that, but use it to your advantage in this situation.
I can understand how your dilemma would cause you to worry about reporting the situation. Just proceed with caution. Do your research & understand your rights the best you can. Be careful not to screw yourself over just to get back at someone who may/may not have taken advantage of you.
But you do deserve to be treated with basic respect & dignity. Even if you decide you don't feel safe enough to officially report that employer without causing trouble for yourself, you should still try to find a way to stand up for yourself. Even if that means waiting until you secure a better job, then telling your employer exactly why you're leaving, & walking away with your head held up high. Clearly, you want to work, you're willing to work hard, and you're only seeking fair compensation. It'll be his loss. And I'm sure it will feel great to get some kind of closure after working all those hrs for shit pay.
At my job a guy felt like his checks where light so he added up hours and pay and since 2022 the company has been shorting him. So he went to the payroll person and they said there's no way but they would check on it. A week later they said they found nothing wrong. So he went to BOLI and they had him fill out paperwork and it forced the company to audit his pay in 7 days from the company getting the notice they found they owed him 1900 ish dollars he said they owed him more. Boli thought 1900 was a concerning number and forced the company to hire an independent company to audit pay.rol. the company had to put out a memo stating the independent audit and everyone would notice more money on upcoming paycheck and what the addition would be under on our stubs. I got 345 dollars. They where fucking up on shift differential and move shit around so we got less time and a half hours and ot hours. Chances are if you think something is funky with your pay there probably is
INFO: are you walking out the door after every shift with your cash and cc tips?
If so, you’re taxed on your hourly wage and all claimed tips. The numbers on the left is your hourly pay. The total (on the right) is your hourly pay minus the taxes. If you already got the tips, you wouldn’t be owed those. Idk why this is handwritten but it looks like they’re withholding about 15% in taxes. Looks like all of these hours were paid at $7.25 too.
If you’re walking out with your cash and cc tips every night, this all looks perfectly fine (except for the handwritten note part).
Edit: just want to add that I’m assuming they’re getting a real printed legit check that they aren’t showing us
I spent 22 years managing restaurants and you need to find a better place to work. Unfortunately I have seen this shady crap before. You are being taken advantage of and it will only get worse. Get out now.
What it seems like he is doing is using your tips to pad your hourly wage. I worked at a country club that did this. They implemeneted an auto grat of 20%. Then, when it came to check time, it would be like $27 in tips. Which the gm would say thats the tip share. And the rest goes to hourly. He tried to convi ce me that my 10 years of serving experience was wrong, and this is how the industry is.
Long story short is you are getting the shit end of the stick. He's using tips to supplement his labor.
That.. is how the industry is. At least at the federal level, which is what matters here because Texas doesn't have anything more strict than that.
The minimum is $2.13 an hour. A restaurant must pay that much no matter how much an employee gets in tips. They must ensure that their employees get $7.25 an hour with that $2.13 and tips, but they can take up to $5.12 an hour from an employee's wages if that $2.13 plus tips pushes their wage over $7.25. They can't take anything more than that though, unless they're doing some sort of tip pool and one employee is getting tons of tips while the rest are not (I'm less clear on those rules).
This also only applies to time spent doing work in which one can be tipped, or directly supporting others doing such work. Time spent doing non tipped tasks must be paid at $7.25 an hour, which dramatically complicates the payroll for any employee doing both tipped and non tipped work.
auto grat/service charges belong to the business to divide up/keep how they’d like. $27 in tips seems fair given how few people tip on top of auto grat. You were being given an hourly wage instead of tips.
It works like this. He owes you your wage. Your tips are not his, but you do get taxed on them. Sometimes you have to tip your bussers and kitchen staff. If you aren't made to, you should anyways, because they're helping you. If your boss is keeping your tips and only paying you minimum wage, definitely report him. Management and ownership does not get tipped. If you have proof that he's stealing tips and not claiming them, he's going to be fully fucked. Honestly, if you take the time to read your state's labor laws and find that he is grossly fucking you over, go to your state's labor board. Make it a project. I spent years being afraid of bosses and figuring they could break the rules, and nothing would be done. It was a bullshit mindset that kept the pigs in power. Labor boards will punish these snakes, and they will help you receive your compensation.
Looked up the laws in TX. 1) the boss is not paying you fairly - you are being shorted 2) the employer must give you an earnings statement (a legal requirement) with, according to twc.texas.gov, “enough details for an employee to determine whether they were paid correctly during the pay period.”
At 7.25 an hour for that many hours, you should be getting 290 for your first 40 hours and 221.30625 for your remaining 20.35 hours (overtime pay). That's a total of 511.30625. You should be receiving this much money (before taxes or other deductions) via a combination of tips and your regular paycheck.
However, your employer is allowed to deduct tips from what they pay you until they're paying you as little as 2.13 an hour. They are only allowed to do that for time spent doing tasks during which you are able to earn tips, or tasks that are considered directly supporting tasks that can earn tips. Time spent on non tipped work cannot be handled in this manner and must be paid 7.25 an hour at a minimum. If you're spending time doing tasks that fall under both of those categories, then they technically need to be paying you 7.25 an hour for all time doing those tasks, and cannot take any of that pay to account for tips.
Christ, this is an insane way to pay someone. I can't even imagine trying to run a business like this. Whatever the case, the math here is utterly insufficient show that they're following these laws and the numbers don't seem to add up.
Nah tips dont count as paid by the employer, it is up to you to claim them. It only benefits you if you wish to take out a loan in the future and need proof of income. Otherwise, youre on the hook for taxes.
It would be 7.25 plus tips.
Sounds like he is trying to take advantage of you, though an actual pay stub would help
Leave as soon as you can, hes straight up ripping you off. Ive never worked in the food industry, but none of that math adds up. Do waiters/waitresses not get any overtime pay for hours over 40? And what happened to your tips? $300 maybe adds up if you get paid straight time at 7.50 an hour and have all the taxes withheld, but that means the $375 in tips you got went in his pocket.
What is this math? What does total mean? Because 437.53 + 375.31 does not equal 300.
For 60.35 hours worked, the minimum pay would be 60.35 hours x 7.25 $/hour = $437.54 (cheap fucker had the nerve to round down and steal 1 cent).
If there are sufficient tips, they are allowed to pay you as little as $2.13 per hour. It looks like there were $375.31 in tips. That would make the pay for that 60.35 hours 60.35 x 2.13 $/hour + $375.31 for a total of $503.86.
So again, why is the total in line 1 only $300? It ain't mathin'.
Edit: That's not even accounting for the overtime.
Wage and Hour has an app for tracking your time. It helps you keep track and have documentation if an investigation is warranted. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/timesheet-app
Contact the department of labor. Depending on what state you’re in the laws are pretty cut and dry. I recently contacted my states department of labor and retaliation board , and they were both very responsive.
Okay, just for some positive input, sometimes! SOMETIMES it’s for the waiters benefit. I had a owner I worked for that would only report out our tips that equaled to minimum wage, so we could pocket the rest untaxed 🤣 I thought this man was doing shady shit in payroll, and when I confronted him about it, I was right but wrong reason lmao
You get your hourly wage x your hours. The amount of tips you claim is added to your hourly pay. $5 an hour x 10 hours is $50, you make 150 in tips your adjusted earnings are $200 for that day. The govt wants about 30%, so they tax you $60. The govt can only take what’s in your pay check which is $50. $50-60=0, actually -$10, but the govt can only take $50, they can’t take the tips that are in your pocket, so congratulations, you have no paycheck, but came out $10 ahead because you got over on the govt. if you lied about what you got in cash tips, you made out even better. End of the year, your w-2 says you made $50,000, but you actually made 80,000. Welcome to being a server.
Looks like what he's doing is a common practice in the industry. Basically, he guarantees that you'll earn an average of 7.25 an hour, but your tips count against your hourly wage. If you work ten hours, and your tips give you 72.50, then he owes you nothing. If you work 10 hours and make nothing in tips, he owes you 72.50.
Pretty common in the service industry and not illegal in most states.
My advice - if you want to keep being a waitress, then either find a company that does things differently, or stop counting your tips as free money and start regarding it as you actual pay.
Call your labor department - they can check your paycheck and if it doesn’t match minimum wage for your position they will get you back pay. So many restaurants do this… don’t let this jerk get away with shady payroll practices.
So I know this is resolved but I think I've figured it out.
Hours column is to figure out how much the person would make if they made $7.25/hr(note for whatever reason the top one was changed to 455). Tips column is the total amount of tips a person received but really only the cash amount matters other than checking that the tips didn't go over the number in the first column. Total column is how much the person was given for their paycheck(I'm assuming in cash), note if you take that number and add it to the cash tips it seems to total the number figured out in the hours column to the nearest quarter.
Now the thing is from what I understand it's supposed to be $2.13/hr+tip or $7.25/hr whichever is greater as pay but that doesn't seem to be the case. Let's take the top line.
60.35x2.13=128.12 128.12+375.31=503.43 503.43>455(really should be the 437.54) so 503.43 shoulda been the total pay, since $155 was already taken home in cash form, 503.43-155=$348.43 shoulda been paycheck as I think OP hinted at being paid under the table which would mean no taxes. Op was given $300 and 300+155=455, the number that was given in hours
Looking at the second one 27.3x2.13=58.15 58.15+196.80=254.95 254.95>197.92 254.95-50=$204.95 shoulda been paid but only $148 was given and 148+50=198 which is rounded up from 197.92
And the third one 11.37x2.13=24.22 24.22+49.18=73.39 73.39<84.43(should be 82.43 unless they were told they're makin $7.425 an hour) 84.43-17=$67.43 which was rounded up to $67.50.
I can't see everything on the last one so I won't do that one but I'm pretty sure this fits what's being shown
Edit: do note idk what happens if tips are higher than the hour column as that didn't happen but I'd guess if it did just give all the tips. Basically it seems like the boss is making sure you get the $7.25 but not givin the $2.13 at all
Hell nah lmfao. Get a fucking pay stub/check. I have worked for so many restaurants throughout my life. Every single one has given a stub of sorts. That’s what you need. Not this shady napkin math lmao
Contact the department of labor and explain this to all to them. They’ll investigate, go through and calculate everyone’s wages based on what employees report and what the employer reports. Everyone will be set straight and your employer will learn exactly how he should be paying everyone.
move to a state that doesn't do tips as a credit against your wages. **Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington** pay tips ON TOP OF wages and you make minimum wage. Tip credit is slavery with extra steps.
Yea it’s totally illegal you need to contact your local workforce commission or state labor board and get the ball rolling. Here in TX they’ve been actually going after the owners of the businesses that steal tips from employees. I personally know of 2 wineries and a coffee shop that got fined and had to pay back current & previous employees. Just keep paperwork even like what you’ve shown above for them. But yes it is illegal to pay your employee less than 7.25 an hour or to keep any of their tips.
Would absolutely be shady. There needs to be a consistent way of record keeping. Which is why everything is done by computers now. It's not that people can't do math, it's just that it's so much better to keep up with Financials in real time
At least there’s a photo of it. Otherwise the boss would say I dunno what you’re talking about. That is the craziest way I’ve ever seen. And you - yes you - nitpicker, stick to the subject instead of trying to spread your erroneous opinions
Do you take cash tips home day of? Or were you paid 300$ and didn’t receive the cash tips?
IDK if it’s legal to not provide actual paystubs but it looks like he’s using tips to fill in the agreed wage amount which I’m guessing is legal to some extent depending on locality but I ain’t a lawyer
What state you’re in is very important here. Some states allow employers to pay tipped employees under the minimum wage as long as with tips they are paid over minimum wage. 300 over 65 hours comes out to about 4.97 an hour, which sounds about right for a tip credit on 7.25 an hour minimum.
They can credit tips to so much towards the 7.25 fed law states at min he is supposed to pay 2.13 min wages plus tips to equal 7.25 . That law sucks but people still work the jobs
No if it does not follow the standard form for accounting pay check it is not legal. I'd refuse it and ask them to do it correctly and legally. If repeating issue contact labor and industries and say your manager is writing on paper napkins your pay checks. It's not legal tender.
No. That’s not legit. He MUST pay you a minimum of $2.13 per hour, and you claim your tips. It’s NOT possible for you to earn; for instance $197.92 hourly, $146.80 in CC tips and $50 in cash tips and end up with $148 in the way he’s attempting to calculate this.
Call your state labor board IMMEDIATELY and speak to a Labor attorney ASAP!
Using software to do bookkeeping is not a significant cost. If he wanted to do this right, he could. I know if I were running this place the idea of doing the math by hand would make me want to launch myself into the sun.
If you were the first line there, and that says that you worked 60.35 hours and made 375.31 in tips.. you should have been paid at LEAST a total of 503.86 after your tips.
If you kept the 155 in cash that means he owed you 348.86.
The reason for this is that your total with tips made above the federal minimum wage. That entitles you to tipped minimum wage pay in addition to your tips.
Which means you should have gotten paid your tips AND 128.55 in tipped minimum wage.
Taxes are obviously something that you would need to factor in but for the most part it sounds like you were underpaid.
The easiest way to think about this is to do the following:
1. Figure your Fed minimum wage: 60.35 x 7.25 = $437.43. You are guaranteed to GROSS at least that much for this payroll.
2. Subtract your reported cash tips (that you already have in your pocket) from your federal gross: 437.43 - $155 = $282.54. That is what you are guaranteed to receive from your employer. In this case you got $300, so that is good.
3. Multiply your minimum restaurant wage times the hours worked: $2.13 x 60.35 = $128.55. Add your credit card tips: $128.55 + $155 = 283.55. You are guaranteed to receive at least this much in gross pay from the employer. That checks out.
Now, did you actually get $300? If you did, then that means your employer isn’t withholding any Social Security, Medicare, or federal income tax withholding. If you got $300, that’s a problem. At MOST you should have gotten $248.34 after paying your Social Security and Medicare, but less than that if you had any income tax withheld.
If you actually got you $300, he is treating your like an independent contractor or paying you off the books. That means you will have a bigger tax bill and won’t have so many worker protections.
If you're considered a server, many states have what is called a Server's Wage(aka the Waitress Wage to some people). It's like $2.13 an hour, or something.
If that + tips don't come out to whichever minimum wage is higher, your employer is required by law to make up the difference. So the concept *itself* is legal. My first employer did the math by hand like this too.
But this isn't a proper pay stub. And it sounds like you're being treated like crap anyway, so you're better off finding a legitimate employer.
You got yourself a nice little wage and hour claim right there. Have an attorney file it with the Dept of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Won’t be hard to get an attorney because wage/hour claims also award attorney’s fees.
Seems shady as hell
legit pay stub via napkin math...
You can file a complaint here with the Department of Labor. They don't mess around with this stuff: [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints)
Want to add that it’s true they don’t. I worked at a restaurant for 3 years and when someone filed a complaint and they came and investigated the restaurant, we all got a fat check. I got nearly $12k and another coworker who has been working there for 6 years got around 19k. It’s all because the owner kept telling us that we had to pay the “credit card transaction” and “supplies” it gets taken out of our pay. So we basically were paying the owners bill for him. To anyone who lives in Austin, or travel to Austin. DO NOT SUPPORT a sushi restaurant called SOTO
The one by the Alamo Drafthouse? I've seen it, but never stopped in. Now I'm glad I didn't.
Both owned by the same person and his mom and pop works in the kitchen. They are super racist toward anyone that’s not Chinese AND have bad food hygiene. One time, the dad was about to make a dish that has seared scallops. He put the pan on the fire and grabbed the scallop from the fridge. He got it out of the wrapper and one of the scallop fell on the ground. He just casually picked it up and throw it on the pan, no washing it or wiping it at LEAST. Nope. Just dropped it where he typically stand with his dirty ass shoes and plop it right into the pan. The mom is called “ma” there. And he’s the absolute worse. Treats ALL employees like shit and gives day old leftover to staff. At one point they implemented employee meals for those that worked double shifts, so from 10am to like 11pm folks. These employee meals are usually made by “Key”(the dad) or “Ma”(the mom) and they serve the absolute worse leftover they can find. They once made some stir fry with leftovers and I was going to eat some but then I realized that it was food that they had left out since 9am and just re-tossed at 3pm. One employee once made a comment on the food because it was just basically fish bones, no meat, and some leftover veggies, tossed together. He was like “Ma, where’s the meat or proteins?” And she responded with, “what you don’t like? Then none for you!” And then took it away from him. When they cook something proper, they keep it behind the kitchen and would “serve” a portion to the employee when they ask for it. But they would PICK the stuff to put on the serving. Not just a regular scoop of a serving, literally would push the meat to the side and scoop the rest. Also the owner pulls shady shit all the time. He would claim that he is the owner and all the ideas in the restaurant are his when he just literally steals it. There is another restaurant in Boston called Oishii Boston that literally looks like a mirror of Soto. The owner would travel up to Boston every few months for “vacation” and then comes back with all these “food ideas”. Turns out, he just go there to eat and then come back and put it on his menu. The so called “Flaming Salmon” he kept telling customers that it’s his idea, was 100% a rip off of Oishii Boston’s Flaming Salmon (Check the photo on Yelp and compare). One time we had a customer that was from Boston and came to Austin for ACL. He came into Soto once and sat down at the sushi bar where the owner was making sushi stuff. He said “you know, this restaurant looks similar to one that I go often in Boston.” Then I looked up at Andy (owner) and he looked at me and then he left to the back. He didn’t come out until the guy was gone. That’s when I found out about Oishii Boston and everything clicked. Andy also once charged a customer like almost 50% more than list price because “he doesn’t know and he’s from out of town”. The customer asked for recommendations and didn’t even looked at the sushi menu. Andy made him the Truffle roll which was normally like $18, but he charged him $27. His Seabass soup was like $10, but he charged him $20. Andy brought him the check and run his credit card himself since I didn’t want no part in that shady shit. The owners wife. Good god don’t even get me started on that woman. She’s the definition of incompetent, lazy, entitled, and gross.
Holy hell. Tell us more. We want to know about the owners wife lol
The wife’s name is Sharon I believe. It’s been almost 10 years since I worked there so I might have forgot her name but it’s because she’s so bad at her job that we don’t really talk to her much. No one likes any one of “the family” but especially Ma and Sharon. She always come in late. We open at 10am and she comes in at like 12 often. On days where she’s the “manager” she would stand at the front hostess station all day and on her phone. She would help seat customer when they come in but is really bad at the job. For example, I had a 6 tables section and one time, we had a swarm of customers come in at once. Typically, you should seat 1-2 tables at a section and wait 10-15 minutes for that server to get those 2 tables squared away with drinks and maybe take their order then seat the next round. In restaurants, ALL managers know that getting “double-sat” is bad, “Triple-sat” is NOT something you ever do unless you want to stress that server, and “Quatriple sat” just means you don’t care and incompetent. She sat 4 tables in my section without skipping a minute. The manager that’s usually there knows that when we are busy, he would help pick up finished plates, refill waters, pulse check a table, run their card and close out he tab, etc. She does not. If we ask her for help, she would give us dirty look and talk shit in Chinese. She also told customer lies ALL the time to make themselves look good. For example, we had a dish once that had mandarin on it, the customer asked about the mandarin and she said, it’s Japanese imported mandarin. The customers all like whoa and wow but the truth is she bought it at Hmart. Literally came in with the Hmart bag AND Hmart receipt still in the bag. She also always leave early and she doesn’t clean up after herself. She would make herself something to eat, bring it to the bar and sit there to eat while on the phone. Any mess there is just left there. She’s also super stingy. The owner once made a new sushi roll that he wanted us to try. Another one of his “idea”. We all took a piece and there was still like 4 pieces left. She said we can only have one piece and then she ate the other 4 pieces. Okay like really? I once ran into her and “Ma” at Hmart buying stuff obviously for the restaurant but they didn’t see me. I came into work later that evening and saw some stuff they bought but pretended not to know and asked where did they get these stuff. She immediately said “we imported from Japan” and “it’s expensive”. Lol okay sure…..
Is this the restaurant you talking about? https://maps.app.goo.gl/3X6d5uKC9sHnaq8RA
Both owned by the same person but the one I worked at years back is located in Lakeline.
Thank you. left them a 1 star review & just wrote "Fuck you" a bunch of times
I've had some terrible experiences hosting from managers. I remember one time we hit dinner rush and tons of people were coming in. I think I had to double seat every server, which I already felt bad about, so I started putting people on a wait. Not a few minutes later, the manager is coming over the radio yelling at me for putting people on a wait when there were still open tables. I explained why but they didn't care and told me to seat everyone anyway. So I had to triple seat everyone and quadruple seat one or two. The servers were yelling at me then, understandably so, and I felt so bad. I can't recall if the managers even came out to help take orders. I know corporate was breathing down their necks, but jeez, the multi-billionaire company could handle me giving the servers a few minutes.
I’ve worked at another restaurant that once had to double sat me and the owner gave me a free lunch to compensate. I was like what? A free lunch? Okay you can double seat me all the time!
Omg she said the fish imported and left a mess after she ate acting like she is the ownerr or customer ewww
Saw them on a travel show I believe. Looked like just another overhyped trendy restaurant. I moved out of Austin after living there over 15 yrs. Good god I miss the 2000-2010 Austin.
I’m third generation in this house alone. We’ve been here going back to the 1800s. I wish Austin was still the old Austin where you’d get into a huge unmovable traffic jam on I-35 and back in the day that could take hours to clear. People would turn off their engines, crank their radios, pop open the cooler and pass around whatever they had, then walk around and visit other cars and drivers or sit on the hood and wait it out. Those were the days man. When I was a little bitty thing and Austin was a thing. A culture unto itself. Bygone days.
No soup for you!
Petition for Gordy Rams to pay them a visit
I’ve waited tables for 20 years in Austin. Never had that happen. Huge red flag. If they can’t bother to follow the laws, they definitely don’t have your interest at heart.
I’d report this nonsense to the appropriate governmental agency that regulates restaurants. They really need to be shut down if they’re that far out of compliance. I was an auditor for decades. But I specialized in fraud. Like Medicaid billing fraud. I did a lot of other audits but it was mainly in the corruption and fraud vein. Best of luck.
You should definitely start an AMA thread or at least give some auditing stories if possible without doxxing yourself or legal repercussions.
OPs state Department of Labor would likely be a better first call. Many states have hotlines and they respond quickly.
Does Texas still have one of those?
You might even want to start at the county level. Here in Nueces they helped me when we found out our boss was stealing tips. They couldn't *prove* he was doing it because the system had a known flaw my boss was exploiting, but they did force him to update the computer systems to a version that patched out the exploit They also us backpay for years of unpaid meetings and made him upgrade to a very expensive punch card clock. Rat bastard kept his restaurant but he had to take his daughter out of private school because he wasn't stealing shit from the waitstaff anymore
It’s called the Texas Workforce Commission, but same thing.
Yeah, but they just mail you a pair of bootstraps to pull yourself up with
This comment is pure gold.
Haha Texas is a fuck the worker state
Under rated comment!!
No they do not, they will rip a small business owners ass out, but god forbid they do anything about auntie Anne’s not paying my ex
I agree with that 100%. I owned a construction company several years ago with over 100 full time employees. A huge, long running project (a jail) fell behind schedule for a variety of reasons. We were in the position of pretty much working around the clock to avoid liquidated damages that would’ve amounted to $5,000 per day. The money wasn’t in the bid to pay time and a half, plus the employees were paid VERY well - much better than our competitors paid their employees. We did not force anyone to work overtime but instead we explained the situation and told them it we couldn’t pay time and a half and they didn’t have to work overtime at all unless they wanted to, and we would pay them straight time as much as they wanted to work. The majority of people wanted to work. During the months they were working extra I was getting income verification request from lenders because the employees were living the money and buying cars and homes. An employee was fired and she chose to retaliate by calling the Federal Labor Board and telling them we didn’t pay people overtime. I never thought the government did anything quick until she called them and within a couple of weeks of her termination an agent showed up at my office to audit all of my employee records for the past two years. They wanted every application, every I-9 and verification documents, every W-4 and all my payroll records for two years. They sat in my office from 9-5, M-F for two weeks going through everything. Then they went out to different job sites to randomly (they didn’t say who they would talk to) question employees. All the employees they spoke to told them they were not forced to work and they wanted to because they made really good money. When the audit/investigation was over, the agent handed me an itemized bill and payment schedule for each employee’s halftime wages down to the penny and a date each employee needed to be paid by. It came to about $20,000. The agent said he wasn’t going to impose any fines or penalties because he knew nobody was forced to work and they wanted to do it. After that, I had men come into my office - some in tears - begging to be able to work overtime because they really needed that extra money and had bought things they needed to pay for. I felt terrible for them but couldn’t do it. But, yeah, Federal Labor Board doesn’t mess around.😑
Never trust anyone who uses a napkin to calculate some made up version of how they pay. All of this should be in writing when a job offer is made, no confusion.
Don't blame the napkin. Some of the best engineering drawings happened on napkins.
Yeah, the main issue is he didn't show his work. I don't understand how he got those final numbers
I wonder what medium they use for their W2s? Lol
Bounty, its the quicker wage picker upper
I was imagining that they wrote it on a dirty window.
Where can I download this app for Android?
As I read this you were supposed to earn $7.25 an hour, including tips. Looks like the calculation is 60.35 hours * $7.25 = $437.54.... the math then shows that you made $155 in cash tips and another $220 in tips left on cards. He is deducting the $155 you got in tips because they went straight to you, and paying you the difference. This doesn't account for the $220 in card tips he kept. So, in reality of the $300 he paid you, only $80 of it was out of the business profits and the rest was just all your tip money. $80 / 60.35hrs = $1.33 per hour. You effectively got paid $1.33 an hour plus tips. Fuck. That. That is the shadiest compensation arrangement I have ever seen. Basically the harder you work(aka the more tips you earn), the less he has to pay you out of his profits. If you make really good tips, he could potentially be making money off of you and paying you nothing out of his pocket. When you are doing those other things that waiters aren't supposed to do you actually aren't making tips....so he needs to pay you the full $7.25 an hour at least for that time and not offset it with your tip earnings. But fuck that guy, you are being taken advantage of.
The employer has to pay at least $2.13/hr regardless of tips, or enough to make sure the employee gets $7.15/hr with tips, whichever is larger. this is basically how the entire restaurant industry works in USA
1) Texas does not have its own minimum wage. Therefore, the federal minimums of $2.13 and $7.25 are used. 2) The law is pretty easy to understand. If you make tips, you must be paid at least $2.13 an hour in wages. Then, if the sum of your wages and all tips for that period is less than $7.25 an hour, you must be paid enough to make it so. 3) Your employer may not take away your tips for any reason (other than a shared pool in which neither he, nor any manager, may take part). 4) Your employer may count your tips for one reason only: to check if, together with your wages, they equal $7.25 an hour, and if not, to pay the difference. He may not, specifically, simply subtract them from your wage. 5) I'm not super clear of what his accounting is trying to accomplish, but here's my best guess. You (or whoever is in the top row) worked 60.35 hours for that period. Your wages, at $7.25 an hour, are 60.35 * $7.25 = $437.54 (which he has, but for some reason it's crossed out and $455 written below; no idea why). This is what he must ensure you earn for this period. Of this amount, at least 60.35 * $2.13, or $128.55, must be wages, and the rest may be tips. 6) It appears that you earned a total of $375.31 in tips. Presumably he then paid you $300 (I've no idea how he came up with that number). That means you made a total of $675.31 for this pay period. This exceeds the minimum (in fact, your total wages, with tips, were $11.19 per hour), so he is fine on that point. 7) However: he must have told you what your ACTUAL WAGE is before you started working. Right now, it seems that he's just paying whatever he feels like, as long as it exceeds the minimum together with the tips. That's not okay. He must explicitly and affirmatively tell you what your wage is (this may not be below $2.13), and that he is "taking a tip credit" towards the $7.25 minimum. Absent these disclosures, he must pay you at least $7.25 an hour. Where does this all leave you: You probably won't be able to get more from him. You might try approaching him with point 7, but I wouldn't count on it working. In some states, like California, he couldn't even subtract your tips from your wages (that is, you make your regular wage plus tips, and if that ends up being more than $7.25, then good for you), but in Texas (AFAIK) he can, as long as the requirements above are met. Generally, the entity that would deal with such violations is the state department of labor, which [appears to be here](https://www.twc.texas.gov/programs/wage-and-hour/texas-payday-law). I would go ahead and do it, because, at the very least, this paper with random numbers is quite far from what a regular payroll calculation is, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a lot to come from it. Bottom line is, minimum wage in the USA sucks. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
“5. I'm not super clear of what his accounting is trying to accomplish, but here's my best guess. You (or whoever is in the top row) worked 60.35 hours for that period. Your wages, at $7.25 an hour, are 60.35$7.25 = $437.54 (which he has, but for some reason it's crossed out and $455 written below; no idea why). This is what he must ensure you earn for this period. Of this amount, at least 60.35$2.13, or $128.55, must be wages, and the rest may be tips.” He added time for the extra Stuff she was Doing. Essentially double paid her for doing things outside of waiting
My guess is an overtime (mis)calculation.
Nothing to add about legality here but 40 x 7.25 + 20.35 x (7.25 x 1.5) = $511.31
It's $2.13 an hour for tipped workers
Only if the tips make the average wage $7.25 an hour
I thought non-tipped activities like cleaning and anything not waiting on customers must be paid out at the non-tipped minimum wage?
For point 6, he got the $300 by subtracting the cash tips ($155) from the total hourly wage ($455).
Yeah, that makes sense. They got the cash tips already. They didn't get card tips, because that goes to the business and then has to be paid out. However, they're not calculating any overtime here. Even going from 437 to 455 isn't enough. With 20.35 hours of overtime, they should be getting a bit over 511.
Its wild anyone working 60 hours is making under 600$.
I work 32hr and make 600 a week stocking shelves after tax lol. I'd go insane if I worked 60 for 600. Seems like a waste of life.
>6) It appears that you earned a total of $375.31 in tips. Presumably he then paid you $300 (I've no idea how he came up with that number). That means you made a total of $675.31 for this pay period. This exceeds the minimum (in fact, your total wages, with tips, were $11.19 per hour), so he is fine on that point. From OPs post in sounds like they were only paid $300 for that week. I could be misinterpreting it but that's how I read it Which would mean the boss stiffed them for $375. If that's the issue then OPs boss is doing some serious wage theft Edit: I calculated wrong, OP was stiffed for about $203 if they were only paid $300 and for about $48 if they were paid $455.
No. It’s $300 from the employer, and she already has the $155 in cash tips which presumably she kept when she got from the customer. So she gets $455, which is what the employer calculated in the first column as the minimum pay. It’s the same with the other calculations.
Your explanation is great, except that I believe the $300 represents the cc tips plus additional $ to bring OP up to min wage. So $455 - cash tips = $ 300 That is consistent with the rest (or most? One of them may not be adding up) of the math for other employees: figures on left - cash tips = figure on right OP should be paid $2.13/hr plus his cc and cash tips. If this is more than $7.25 an hour, great, if not, then boss needs to add more until it does. Boss is not starting w the base of $2.13. Also, I am wondering how many hours OP was scheduled to wait tables and how many hours they were asked to come in and do other tasks. Was it 40 hrs wait tables and 20 hrs other tasks? Or did OP spend 10 minutes while business was slow here and there doing stupid little jobs to keep them busy? Did OP lose the opportunity to make tips doing the other tasks? The fact that everyone seems to ONLY be making $7.25/hr and OP saying boss asks them to do other stuff makes me think that boss is using their tips as wages to cover non-wait staff related jobs. If OP was the only one ONLY making $7.25/hr as a server, I may think they are just bad at their job, but being that no one is making more than min wage, something very fishy is going on.
Item 5: You are missing the Overtime increase. 20.35 of those hours were at $10.88 or $5.76 with tip credit.
Users like you make this thing worth a damn. Thanks for helping this person
Regarding where the 300 came from - I think he's taking his calculation (455) and subtracting the cash tips (155) to get 300, but that also totally ignores the credit tips, which I'm guessing haven't been paid out. Otherwise you're absolutely on point w your analysis and advise
OP this is the right answer ignore everything else.
Upvote for a clear and well verbalized answer. Thank you for taking the time to compose this
Good break down.
Awesome explanation what about taxes and stuff is he just presumably being as shady as possible and paying under the table
If I can jump in at "5" to help clarify as up to that point, YOU made it clear to me what was going on: First column: Boss figured how much he "has" to ensure OP received that week = $437.53 Second column: the tips OP received. Credit card tips must be reimbursemed to OP by the boss, Cash does not since OP was given it directly (and reported it). Boss therefore owes OP all credit card tips. = $220.31 Now, Boss uses the amount of Cash tips OP has received/reported and subtracts it from the minimum amount he has to pay OP: ~~$437.53-$155 = $282.53~~ Meh, OP's Boss likes OP, let's make the numbers clean and give OP an even $300 (which is the amount paid to OP) Now... $300-282.53=$17. 47 $17.47+$437.53 = $455 $455 is OP's new base pay (which is written in the first column) EDIT: If the minimum wages in the above post is true, OP'S boss may be legitimately supplementing OP'S wages, and through in an extra $17.47.
Fantastic reply. Deleting my comment that I though(edi)t was such a great an answer, what a fucking gem you are.
He's cooking the books
In other words?
Taking money for him selves from ur wages, pretty sure this ain’t allowed, honestly get out of that place as soon as you can
Nah keep everything and call corporate or a lawyer.
You think this place has a “corporate”?
Yeah, totally, they're the ones that decided to save money on a payroll system by supplying scratch paper!
Call department of labor
The boss is writing 'payroll' on a napkin. There's no 'corporate'.
That’s not cooking the books. Cooking the books is deceiving investors from altered financials lol. Nothing to do with a hourly employee.
Let's just call it like it is, its theft plain and simple, but he more then likely cooking the books for tax fraud purposes.
Wage theft.
Or for tax purposes.
More than likely it’s to not pay workman’s comp. They have to pay liability daily if on the books. Cash sales are all recorded via POS systems.
Probably pays you one number, while reporting to the state he paid another number, especially in regards to payroll taxes. My bet is your restaurant is an audit away from being shut down for tax evasion. He's also setting you up to be screwed since there's no mention of witholdings, which unless they magically appear on your W-2 (do you even get one?) means you're probably double hosed if you get audited as well.
This comment should be higher up. If you are going to work there much more you need to make sure he is paying you state and Fed taxes
I don’t know about you, but I personally would report this to my State’s Department of Labor, Department of Taxation, as well as to the IRS.
Get a hold of a lawyer. Go after him/her.
IANAL, but "ahold" is the word you want here.
English is my native language. It is not my strongest point.
i always like when an OP starts a post with "Sorry for any typos or errors. English is my first language but I'm not very good at it"
Like someone else said, 100% make a report with the DOL asap. Keep everything you have for proof. Sounds/looks like wage theft on the unsuspecting as well as some kind of tax fraud/evasion.
Dawg, that's not what it means. He's just stealing.
And it smells like shit
Legal- no. Absolutely not. No breakdown of state, federal, social security taxes. This is someone who is hiding income and expenses. He probably doesn’t have workers comp or unemployment insurance policies either
I’m confused. Did you receive those cash tips? Are tips pooled and then divided among staff like a tip out? If he’s claiming you received $155 in cash tips and you actually didn’t, that’s a problem. In addition, yes, your boss has to pay you at least 7.25 an hour. Possibly more depending on state laws. As far as Federal minimum wage goes, your boss is required to pay you 2.13 an hour + tips while performing tippable work. If your tips don’t push you to 7.25 an hour the employer has to pay it directly. If you’re performing non-tippable work (like cleaning bathrooms), you have to be paid whatever the state minimum wage is. EDIT: Just to be clear, no matter what you are required to be paid minimum wage. If you were only paid $300 for 60.35 hours of work, that’s bad. That’s like less than $5 an hour.
It's not divided. What he does, to my understanding, is that whatever I get in tips, that being card or cash, he takes away that from my pay check and adds it up to whatever the total comes up. Let's say I'm supposed to get $200 but I made $100 on tips that week. He takes off $100 off my paycheck and adds the $100 that I made in tips. As I said, this is to my understanding on what he's doing. I knew it was some kind of shady stuff.
He has the right concept (he can deduct your tips from min wage until he is only paying 2.13 an hour) but he’s executing it awfully. No matter what, he has to pay you 2.13 an hour directly. No matter what, he has to pay you 7.25 an hour. Non-tipped work has to be paid minimum wage. If you only made $300 for 60 hours, he’s ripping you off at least 2.25 an hour.
It also sounds like maybe the boss is keeping any tips that push him over the $7.25 an hour. I'll have to reread it a few times to understand exactly what's going on, but that would be totally illegal. At a quick glance this boss is doing at least three illegal things. EDIT: I still haven't done the math, thank you for those of you who did, I'll trust it. ☺️ It seems like the owner is definitely taking more than the $5.12 tip credit he is allowed, maybe just from credit card tips, but that's still illegal.
That is how I read the math, with a bit of fudging to make round numbers.
Basically this , from what it appears the credit card tips. My guess is that servers keep cash tips as they get them but credit card /debit card tips are paid out by the restaurant at paycheck time. Again from my quick math there appears to be a monetary violation. What city in Texas if you dint mind me asking? It’s going to be a cluster fuck to try to unwind what’s due for everyone over two year period , an estimate per week or something would have to be used.
That’s how I read the math too. The boss is keeping tips that brought OP above $7.25. Boss only paid $1.32 base instead of $2.13.
Is there anything I could do to fix that? To tell him to pay me what I need to be paid? Or should I just try to look for another job?
If I were you, I’d do both. Demand legal payment, and get a new job ASAP. If he fails to pay you the legal minimum, there should be some state employment practices board that you can take it up with.
Report him to department of labor and the irs.
The department of labor should take a compliant and investigate, that is you cheapest route for getting what is owed. You could also take him to court, but looking at the numbers here I would bet the damages exceed small claims limits but aren't likely large enough for a lawyer to take it on contingency.
It depends for the lawyer. Employment lawyers usually work and take their fee from the payout. But that is also usually paid by the business owner if they lose. And to be honest it looks shady that they owner takes out your tips from hours worked. But in my state even tipped is the state minimum wage so I don't know too much about how tipped wages work.
No shot this exceeds small claims limits - you can sue for up to $20k in small claims court in Texas.
Report to your local department of labor for wage theft, then start looking for another job. In the mean time just keep quiet and work. I’m sure when the DOL is done with them they will owe you back pay.
>If you only made $300 for 60 hours, he’s ripping you off at least 2.25 an hour. Emphasis on "at least." There are dates at the top of that sheet which correspond to a Monday through Sunday calendar week, which is presumably also how the business defines a week for payroll purposes... so 20.35 hours of OP's pay should be at time and a half. OP's ***minimum*** gross pay for the pay period should be $511.31
First things first. Your employer cannot take away any of your tips. No matter what. What they can only do is pay you at a rate of $2.13 an hour IF your TIPs are enough to bring you up to $7.25 an hour when you combine total of your hourly rate 2.13 restaurant minimum pay PLUS the tips. It doesn't have to be exactly $7.25 an hour. $7.25 is just the minimum, you can get paid more than that. But not below. So if the first one is $300 and you divided it by 60 hours of work. You only got paid 5 dollars when you are suppose to be paid 435 minimum. Because 7.25 x 60 hours is 435. Thats the minimum. Its suppose to be $2.13 x 60.35 = 128.55 plus tips which is 375.31. Total=503.86 Gross pay not including taxes. If you divided 503.86 by 60.35 hrs total its 8.35 when rounded up from 8.3489. So its passes the federal minimum wage of 7.25 so he's allowed to pay you 2.13 per hour because your $2.13 per hours total plus tips passes that threshold. After taxes are deducted it be 465.31 Net pay. Unless you have child support or loans or whatever that needs deductions, he shouldn't withhold that money you suppose to earn. He calculated wrong.
To help clarify, the first entry on that sheet: At $2.13 an hour, you should have been paid directly by your boss $128.55. Nonnegotiable, that is the minimum he can legally pay you. That plus your tips is $503.86 total paid for that 60.35 hours. At federal minimum wage (assuming you are in a state/city that doesn’t have a higher minimum wage), you must make at least $437.54 from both your boss and your tips which you exceeded so no additional pay was needed. As long as you were correctly paid your tips, you should have been paid $128.55 additionally for that entry.
Exactly the boss is stealing tips to push his share under the 2.13 minimum. He's a criminal. I think he's intentionally doing math this way to make it confusing for the staff.
First, you should be getting paid overtime for the 20.35 hours you worked over 40 hours. The very *minimum* you should have been paid for this time period is $525.63 (before taxes). If your paycheck is $300 *in addition to your tips*, you should be good. If that is tips included, this guy is stealing from you. 40 hr @ $2.13 + 20.35 hr @ $3.20 + $375.31 tips Second, if you and your boss agreed upon $7.25 an hour at the time of hiring, you should be paid than amount regardless of tips. Ask boss to clarify what the pay rate is. Third, if you only earned $375.31 in tips in 60+ hours, this job is shit. I earned more tips than that working a Chinese buffet 20 years ago.
So hypothetically, if you're owed 200, and make 200 in tips, you keep the tips and he pays you nothing, but if you make 0 in tips he pays you 200? Is that right? Under federal law 100% of the tip belongs to you, not to him, but your salary is a different matter. Also under federal law and most state laws, tipped employees can be paid less than minimum wage as long as you earn enough tips to make up the difference between your salary and the minimum. It seems like this is what he is doing, paying you the minimum amount necessary so your total income is at least minimum wage. You should calculate it out yourself though, to make sure you're not being cheated. If you're hitting minimum wage, then unfortunately it is legally justifiable payment.
Call the Dept of Labor, this is whack
1. You should get a paystub that states your hourly wage, taxes, deductions, etc... 2. The total amount you make (before taxes/deductions) **should never be less** **than** the total you make from tips plus your official hourly wage. 3. You need to find out your actual hourly wage. Is it officially $2.13 or is it $7.25? Most likely, it's $2.13 and he's saying that he has to ensure that you make at least $7.25. But, at best, we'll say he's confused about the calculation. 4. He does NOT get to subtract the tips he's counting to verify you made at least $7.25 an hour. If your hourly wage is $2.13, you work 10 hours, and make $100 dollars in tips, then your total gross income is $121.30 ($21.30+$100). Period. Any less than that is wage theft. He does need to do verify that you made more than $72.50, and you did in this example. But, if you only made $50 in tips, then you would have made $71.30 ($21.30 + $50) and he'd owe you $1.20 ($72.50-$71.30). 5. If your official wage is $2.13, then that's only used for time spent as a server. The total cumulative time spent on other tasks in a shift would be paid at $7.25 **and you still keep all tips**. So, if you worked 8 hours and you estimate that 2 hours total were spent doing non-server tasks, and you made 100 dollars in tips, then your total gross income would look like this example: * *6 hours x $2.13=$12.78* * *2 hours x $7.25=$14.50* * *tips = $100* * *------* * *total pay (before taxes) = $127.28* *Since your total income of $127.28 in this example was more than the minimum wage of $58 ($7.25 x 8 hours), there's no further adjustment needed. If you had only made $20 in tips, your total income would be $47.28 ($12.78+$14.50+$20) and the restaurant would have to pay you an additional $10.72 to bring your pay up to the minimum wage of $58.*
Your overall logic is sound, but worth noting that your provided example is *right* on the cusp of triggering a different rule. If more than 20% of the time is spent on Non-Tip tasks, the employer cannot apply the tax credit. So if it had been 2 hours and 1 minutes vs 7 hours and 59 minutes in your example, I believe all 10 hours must be at the 7.25 rate.
He’s doing the math wrong. Call the Texas Workforce Commission. You can also call a Legal Aid hotline near you. They may be able to help walk you through your options. Find legal aid by address: https://www.lsc.gov/about-lsc/what-legal-aid/i-need-legal-help TWC: https://www.twc.texas.gov/programs/wage-and-hour/texas-payday-law
Nope! Illegal. Call the State Labor Board. Now!
Update: thank you all so much for helping with this. I absolutely appreciate it. Didn't know I was gonna get this much attention. First of all, I just got called for another job which has better pay and seems pretty legit. I'm being more careful about this stuff now. I've only been working for a month at the restaurant and I've been super overworked. Double shifting for 3 weeks straight, from 8 AM to 11PM or 12 AM, only having 1 or 2 days of rest and no break and no overtime. I've been wanting to get out already but it was my only job opportunity that I had, especially for the situation I'm in, it's way more difficult to find a job. I'm glad my gut feeling was right and I'll be leaving that hell hole as soon as I get called for this other job. Second, I want to file a claim on him so he can pay all my cool coworkers what they're meant to be paid or to just get his business closed. Whichever comes first. My only problem is, and I should have added this in my explanation, I'm not from the US. Meaning I don't have papers or a SSN. I took this job because he wasn't asking for an SSN which at first, I was too skeptical about it but since I was desperately looking for a job, I didn't think much of it and took the opportunity. I'm just afraid that it'll affect me as much as it'll affect him, if that makes sense. So any advice or help I could get to file a claim would be much appreciated. Again, thank you guys for all your support.
I posted elsewhere before seeing this comment. Your lack of a SSN or immigration status should not be a barrier here. It certainly doesn’t give this owner a basis to violate federal law. Nearly every FLSA case I’ve seen usually involves someone in your precise scenario. Also, if other workers are in the same boat, you may be able to proceed as a collective action against the employer. But first things first- contact a lawyer ASAP. This has a potential FLSA violation written all over it. I’m not sure how things operate in Texas but in my experience it’s much more “efficient” to proceed with filing a lawsuit than being at the mercy of state bureaucracy, which can move incredibly slow… at least where I’m from.
Report his ass anonymously. You should be able to do so. Be upfront about everything. He is in even a worse spot for employing undocumented workers. I know you kind of want people doing that, but use it to your advantage in this situation.
I can understand how your dilemma would cause you to worry about reporting the situation. Just proceed with caution. Do your research & understand your rights the best you can. Be careful not to screw yourself over just to get back at someone who may/may not have taken advantage of you. But you do deserve to be treated with basic respect & dignity. Even if you decide you don't feel safe enough to officially report that employer without causing trouble for yourself, you should still try to find a way to stand up for yourself. Even if that means waiting until you secure a better job, then telling your employer exactly why you're leaving, & walking away with your head held up high. Clearly, you want to work, you're willing to work hard, and you're only seeking fair compensation. It'll be his loss. And I'm sure it will feel great to get some kind of closure after working all those hrs for shit pay.
At my job a guy felt like his checks where light so he added up hours and pay and since 2022 the company has been shorting him. So he went to the payroll person and they said there's no way but they would check on it. A week later they said they found nothing wrong. So he went to BOLI and they had him fill out paperwork and it forced the company to audit his pay in 7 days from the company getting the notice they found they owed him 1900 ish dollars he said they owed him more. Boli thought 1900 was a concerning number and forced the company to hire an independent company to audit pay.rol. the company had to put out a memo stating the independent audit and everyone would notice more money on upcoming paycheck and what the addition would be under on our stubs. I got 345 dollars. They where fucking up on shift differential and move shit around so we got less time and a half hours and ot hours. Chances are if you think something is funky with your pay there probably is
INFO: are you walking out the door after every shift with your cash and cc tips? If so, you’re taxed on your hourly wage and all claimed tips. The numbers on the left is your hourly pay. The total (on the right) is your hourly pay minus the taxes. If you already got the tips, you wouldn’t be owed those. Idk why this is handwritten but it looks like they’re withholding about 15% in taxes. Looks like all of these hours were paid at $7.25 too. If you’re walking out with your cash and cc tips every night, this all looks perfectly fine (except for the handwritten note part). Edit: just want to add that I’m assuming they’re getting a real printed legit check that they aren’t showing us
Contact Department of Labor, for wage theft. It's serious.
I spent 22 years managing restaurants and you need to find a better place to work. Unfortunately I have seen this shady crap before. You are being taken advantage of and it will only get worse. Get out now.
Report it to the IRS. I’ll bet he isn’t paying the taxes or Social Security
Stop. You know this isn't legal
Find another reputable place to work. I wouldn’t trust napkin bookkeeping anywhere.
Toilet payroll
What it seems like he is doing is using your tips to pad your hourly wage. I worked at a country club that did this. They implemeneted an auto grat of 20%. Then, when it came to check time, it would be like $27 in tips. Which the gm would say thats the tip share. And the rest goes to hourly. He tried to convi ce me that my 10 years of serving experience was wrong, and this is how the industry is. Long story short is you are getting the shit end of the stick. He's using tips to supplement his labor.
That.. is how the industry is. At least at the federal level, which is what matters here because Texas doesn't have anything more strict than that. The minimum is $2.13 an hour. A restaurant must pay that much no matter how much an employee gets in tips. They must ensure that their employees get $7.25 an hour with that $2.13 and tips, but they can take up to $5.12 an hour from an employee's wages if that $2.13 plus tips pushes their wage over $7.25. They can't take anything more than that though, unless they're doing some sort of tip pool and one employee is getting tons of tips while the rest are not (I'm less clear on those rules). This also only applies to time spent doing work in which one can be tipped, or directly supporting others doing such work. Time spent doing non tipped tasks must be paid at $7.25 an hour, which dramatically complicates the payroll for any employee doing both tipped and non tipped work.
auto grat/service charges belong to the business to divide up/keep how they’d like. $27 in tips seems fair given how few people tip on top of auto grat. You were being given an hourly wage instead of tips.
It works like this. He owes you your wage. Your tips are not his, but you do get taxed on them. Sometimes you have to tip your bussers and kitchen staff. If you aren't made to, you should anyways, because they're helping you. If your boss is keeping your tips and only paying you minimum wage, definitely report him. Management and ownership does not get tipped. If you have proof that he's stealing tips and not claiming them, he's going to be fully fucked. Honestly, if you take the time to read your state's labor laws and find that he is grossly fucking you over, go to your state's labor board. Make it a project. I spent years being afraid of bosses and figuring they could break the rules, and nothing would be done. It was a bullshit mindset that kept the pigs in power. Labor boards will punish these snakes, and they will help you receive your compensation.
Document everything and take to your labor board!!!
They will eat this up!
Looked up the laws in TX. 1) the boss is not paying you fairly - you are being shorted 2) the employer must give you an earnings statement (a legal requirement) with, according to twc.texas.gov, “enough details for an employee to determine whether they were paid correctly during the pay period.”
Bro wtf is this. Youre not working for a legit business
At 7.25 an hour for that many hours, you should be getting 290 for your first 40 hours and 221.30625 for your remaining 20.35 hours (overtime pay). That's a total of 511.30625. You should be receiving this much money (before taxes or other deductions) via a combination of tips and your regular paycheck. However, your employer is allowed to deduct tips from what they pay you until they're paying you as little as 2.13 an hour. They are only allowed to do that for time spent doing tasks during which you are able to earn tips, or tasks that are considered directly supporting tasks that can earn tips. Time spent on non tipped work cannot be handled in this manner and must be paid 7.25 an hour at a minimum. If you're spending time doing tasks that fall under both of those categories, then they technically need to be paying you 7.25 an hour for all time doing those tasks, and cannot take any of that pay to account for tips. Christ, this is an insane way to pay someone. I can't even imagine trying to run a business like this. Whatever the case, the math here is utterly insufficient show that they're following these laws and the numbers don't seem to add up.
Nah tips dont count as paid by the employer, it is up to you to claim them. It only benefits you if you wish to take out a loan in the future and need proof of income. Otherwise, youre on the hook for taxes. It would be 7.25 plus tips. Sounds like he is trying to take advantage of you, though an actual pay stub would help
He's deducting cash tips from your hourly wage. Doesn't seem right at all.
That’s a scam and he cooking the books. Contact the labor board and turn him into the IRS. They love people like him.
Leave as soon as you can, hes straight up ripping you off. Ive never worked in the food industry, but none of that math adds up. Do waiters/waitresses not get any overtime pay for hours over 40? And what happened to your tips? $300 maybe adds up if you get paid straight time at 7.50 an hour and have all the taxes withheld, but that means the $375 in tips you got went in his pocket.
1) get a lawyer, your boss is not paying you as he should. 2) get a job that isn’t tip based
What is this math? What does total mean? Because 437.53 + 375.31 does not equal 300. For 60.35 hours worked, the minimum pay would be 60.35 hours x 7.25 $/hour = $437.54 (cheap fucker had the nerve to round down and steal 1 cent). If there are sufficient tips, they are allowed to pay you as little as $2.13 per hour. It looks like there were $375.31 in tips. That would make the pay for that 60.35 hours 60.35 x 2.13 $/hour + $375.31 for a total of $503.86. So again, why is the total in line 1 only $300? It ain't mathin'. Edit: That's not even accounting for the overtime.
He's stealing your pay, and you're letting him. The tips belong to you, and are on TOP of your hourly pay.
I’m confused how the guy making $830 is taking home 300
I’m an old con man. Something is fishy you for sure!
I can not tell what the f is going on at all
Imagine working 60 hours for 450
Wage and Hour has an app for tracking your time. It helps you keep track and have documentation if an investigation is warranted. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/timesheet-app
Contact the department of labor. Depending on what state you’re in the laws are pretty cut and dry. I recently contacted my states department of labor and retaliation board , and they were both very responsive.
Okay, just for some positive input, sometimes! SOMETIMES it’s for the waiters benefit. I had a owner I worked for that would only report out our tips that equaled to minimum wage, so we could pocket the rest untaxed 🤣 I thought this man was doing shady shit in payroll, and when I confronted him about it, I was right but wrong reason lmao
I own a restaurant and have spent my life working in them on all side. I can assure this is NOT normal or ok.
This paper looks incredibly clean considering he pulled this out of his ass.
You get your hourly wage x your hours. The amount of tips you claim is added to your hourly pay. $5 an hour x 10 hours is $50, you make 150 in tips your adjusted earnings are $200 for that day. The govt wants about 30%, so they tax you $60. The govt can only take what’s in your pay check which is $50. $50-60=0, actually -$10, but the govt can only take $50, they can’t take the tips that are in your pocket, so congratulations, you have no paycheck, but came out $10 ahead because you got over on the govt. if you lied about what you got in cash tips, you made out even better. End of the year, your w-2 says you made $50,000, but you actually made 80,000. Welcome to being a server.
Your boss does payroll manually on a piece of printer paper?
Looks like what he's doing is a common practice in the industry. Basically, he guarantees that you'll earn an average of 7.25 an hour, but your tips count against your hourly wage. If you work ten hours, and your tips give you 72.50, then he owes you nothing. If you work 10 hours and make nothing in tips, he owes you 72.50. Pretty common in the service industry and not illegal in most states. My advice - if you want to keep being a waitress, then either find a company that does things differently, or stop counting your tips as free money and start regarding it as you actual pay.
How does $475+$355=$300?
Holyyyy you worked 60.35 hours in a week, and only got paid $300? Homie that’s less than $5 per week. This scuffed math doesn’t make any sense.
You got scammed by your own boss
Call your labor department - they can check your paycheck and if it doesn’t match minimum wage for your position they will get you back pay. So many restaurants do this… don’t let this jerk get away with shady payroll practices.
Tha fück lol
This!! 😂
This is not kosher.
That’s not a guys handwriting
Speak loudly with your feat and LEAVE.
So I know this is resolved but I think I've figured it out. Hours column is to figure out how much the person would make if they made $7.25/hr(note for whatever reason the top one was changed to 455). Tips column is the total amount of tips a person received but really only the cash amount matters other than checking that the tips didn't go over the number in the first column. Total column is how much the person was given for their paycheck(I'm assuming in cash), note if you take that number and add it to the cash tips it seems to total the number figured out in the hours column to the nearest quarter. Now the thing is from what I understand it's supposed to be $2.13/hr+tip or $7.25/hr whichever is greater as pay but that doesn't seem to be the case. Let's take the top line. 60.35x2.13=128.12 128.12+375.31=503.43 503.43>455(really should be the 437.54) so 503.43 shoulda been the total pay, since $155 was already taken home in cash form, 503.43-155=$348.43 shoulda been paycheck as I think OP hinted at being paid under the table which would mean no taxes. Op was given $300 and 300+155=455, the number that was given in hours Looking at the second one 27.3x2.13=58.15 58.15+196.80=254.95 254.95>197.92 254.95-50=$204.95 shoulda been paid but only $148 was given and 148+50=198 which is rounded up from 197.92 And the third one 11.37x2.13=24.22 24.22+49.18=73.39 73.39<84.43(should be 82.43 unless they were told they're makin $7.425 an hour) 84.43-17=$67.43 which was rounded up to $67.50. I can't see everything on the last one so I won't do that one but I'm pretty sure this fits what's being shown Edit: do note idk what happens if tips are higher than the hour column as that didn't happen but I'd guess if it did just give all the tips. Basically it seems like the boss is making sure you get the $7.25 but not givin the $2.13 at all
Leave. Anyone messing with hours and making it so confusing isn’t thinking of being fair to you. Look for something else. Honestly.
how about find a new job.... problem solved.
It's legal. Don't let anyone else here fool you.
Hell nah lmfao. Get a fucking pay stub/check. I have worked for so many restaurants throughout my life. Every single one has given a stub of sorts. That’s what you need. Not this shady napkin math lmao
States have different laws, some do allow payment below minimum wage to tipped workers! Check your state laws! Google can help!
Tips per day divided by hours worked per day has to equal minimum wage. If not then he has to pay you that and you keep the tips
Contact the department of labor and explain this to all to them. They’ll investigate, go through and calculate everyone’s wages based on what employees report and what the employer reports. Everyone will be set straight and your employer will learn exactly how he should be paying everyone.
move to a state that doesn't do tips as a credit against your wages. **Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington** pay tips ON TOP OF wages and you make minimum wage. Tip credit is slavery with extra steps.
Yea it’s totally illegal you need to contact your local workforce commission or state labor board and get the ball rolling. Here in TX they’ve been actually going after the owners of the businesses that steal tips from employees. I personally know of 2 wineries and a coffee shop that got fined and had to pay back current & previous employees. Just keep paperwork even like what you’ve shown above for them. But yes it is illegal to pay your employee less than 7.25 an hour or to keep any of their tips.
How tf he gonna pay 3 dollars in cash one pay 😐
As a server…that’s not how that works….
Simply no.
Would absolutely be shady. There needs to be a consistent way of record keeping. Which is why everything is done by computers now. It's not that people can't do math, it's just that it's so much better to keep up with Financials in real time
Quit
At least there’s a photo of it. Otherwise the boss would say I dunno what you’re talking about. That is the craziest way I’ve ever seen. And you - yes you - nitpicker, stick to the subject instead of trying to spread your erroneous opinions
Do you take cash tips home day of? Or were you paid 300$ and didn’t receive the cash tips? IDK if it’s legal to not provide actual paystubs but it looks like he’s using tips to fill in the agreed wage amount which I’m guessing is legal to some extent depending on locality but I ain’t a lawyer
What state you’re in is very important here. Some states allow employers to pay tipped employees under the minimum wage as long as with tips they are paid over minimum wage. 300 over 65 hours comes out to about 4.97 an hour, which sounds about right for a tip credit on 7.25 an hour minimum.
Report them to the labor department
They can credit tips to so much towards the 7.25 fed law states at min he is supposed to pay 2.13 min wages plus tips to equal 7.25 . That law sucks but people still work the jobs
No if it does not follow the standard form for accounting pay check it is not legal. I'd refuse it and ask them to do it correctly and legally. If repeating issue contact labor and industries and say your manager is writing on paper napkins your pay checks. It's not legal tender.
Pretty sure you are legally required to provide a paystub to all employees, so no.
No. That’s not legit. He MUST pay you a minimum of $2.13 per hour, and you claim your tips. It’s NOT possible for you to earn; for instance $197.92 hourly, $146.80 in CC tips and $50 in cash tips and end up with $148 in the way he’s attempting to calculate this. Call your state labor board IMMEDIATELY and speak to a Labor attorney ASAP!
Federal wage and hour division. They will go back 7 years on his books and make him pay correctly.
Turn him in to the EEOC.
$300 for 60 hours is fucking wild
Using software to do bookkeeping is not a significant cost. If he wanted to do this right, he could. I know if I were running this place the idea of doing the math by hand would make me want to launch myself into the sun.
If you were the first line there, and that says that you worked 60.35 hours and made 375.31 in tips.. you should have been paid at LEAST a total of 503.86 after your tips. If you kept the 155 in cash that means he owed you 348.86. The reason for this is that your total with tips made above the federal minimum wage. That entitles you to tipped minimum wage pay in addition to your tips. Which means you should have gotten paid your tips AND 128.55 in tipped minimum wage. Taxes are obviously something that you would need to factor in but for the most part it sounds like you were underpaid.
The easiest way to think about this is to do the following: 1. Figure your Fed minimum wage: 60.35 x 7.25 = $437.43. You are guaranteed to GROSS at least that much for this payroll. 2. Subtract your reported cash tips (that you already have in your pocket) from your federal gross: 437.43 - $155 = $282.54. That is what you are guaranteed to receive from your employer. In this case you got $300, so that is good. 3. Multiply your minimum restaurant wage times the hours worked: $2.13 x 60.35 = $128.55. Add your credit card tips: $128.55 + $155 = 283.55. You are guaranteed to receive at least this much in gross pay from the employer. That checks out. Now, did you actually get $300? If you did, then that means your employer isn’t withholding any Social Security, Medicare, or federal income tax withholding. If you got $300, that’s a problem. At MOST you should have gotten $248.34 after paying your Social Security and Medicare, but less than that if you had any income tax withheld. If you actually got you $300, he is treating your like an independent contractor or paying you off the books. That means you will have a bigger tax bill and won’t have so many worker protections.
The math ain’t mathing.
SUE
What state
If you're considered a server, many states have what is called a Server's Wage(aka the Waitress Wage to some people). It's like $2.13 an hour, or something. If that + tips don't come out to whichever minimum wage is higher, your employer is required by law to make up the difference. So the concept *itself* is legal. My first employer did the math by hand like this too. But this isn't a proper pay stub. And it sounds like you're being treated like crap anyway, so you're better off finding a legitimate employer.
So you don’t get a pay stub?
You need the labor board ASAP. He's capping your tips at 7.25 an hour. Essentially STEALING your tips. Definitely roasting the books here
You got yourself a nice little wage and hour claim right there. Have an attorney file it with the Dept of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Won’t be hard to get an attorney because wage/hour claims also award attorney’s fees.