Talk to your coworkers: Are other staff having the same problem? This can be dicey, as some practices – supplementing crummy pay in the kitchen with a share of waiters’ tips – may be negative for one group of employees, but positive for others. You can also contact the state labor agency in the state where you live. Department of Labor, Wages and Hour Division, which enforces the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). File a complaint: Many of the practices described above – such as giving a share of tips to no-show workers – are illegal.Keep your own record of how much you collect from your customers in tips, and how much your boss pays you. Keep your own records: If there are continual “mistakes” in your share of tips, the errors may be less than honest.(Since patrons pay tips in real time, bosses can’t really argue that they don’t have the money.) If you’re not collecting what you think you are due, ask your boss or supervisor, right away, to make up the difference – preferably in cash, on the spot. Tell your boss or supervisor: As Dublanica notes, your tips may be short because of bad bookkeeping or honest mistakes.“Instead of paying their hardest-working employees more,” says Dublanica, “quite a few owners will steal it from the waiter.” Using tip money to pay dishwashers and kitchen staff.For tips left on credit cards, passing along to waiters the charge collected by the credit card company – sometimes on the entire tab, not just the tip.Creating no-show jobs for friends or relatives, then giving the no-shows a full cut from the tip pool.Using tip money to pay pastry chefs, banquet managers and others who do not directly serve customers.There’s less to share, of course, if the boss takes a piece off the top. Outright stealing from the tip jar – usually in a “pool house,” where tips are pooled and some of the money is supposed to be shared with bartenders, waiters and others who assist waiters.Other practices are definitely greedy and evil, says Dublanica, including: Not malicious intent usually, just lazy bookkeeping. “When tips are distributed by check,” says Dublanica, “it’s never, ever accurate. As described by former Manhattan waiter Steve Dublanica, who blogs at, bosses have a bagful of tricks to take what doesn’t belong to them, such as pocketing the tips added to a credit card bill – and keeping a cut for themselves when the money is passed along to the wait staff, days later. Many waiters and others who rely on tips for a sizable chunk of their incomes have this problem. Ever get the feeling your boss has his or her hand in your pocket? As in taking a share of money that’s rightfully yours?
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