Reprinted without permission from from Employment Law Allience®

Many restaurants require servers to participate in a “tip pooling” arrangement. This policy requires tipped employees to share a portion of their tips with host employees, bussers, or kitchen staff. A new decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to declare standard tip pooling arrangements as a violation of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In Cumbie v. Woody Woo, Inc., a server brought a class action claim against her employer, seeking invalidation of the mandatory tip pooling policy. The restaurant requires tipped employees to pool a portion of their tips for distribution to kitchen employees among others. The FLSA’s minimum wage requirements permit restaurants to pay a cash hourly wage of $2.13 to tipped employees, and obtain a credit for the remaining portion of minimum wage through tips. The plaintiff alleged that mandatory participation in a tip pooling arrangement violated this requirement, especially where traditionally non-tipped employees such as cooks participate in the pool.

The Ninth Circuit rejected these arguments, affirming summary judgment for the employer. If as in this case, the tip pool compensated kitchen personnel, the employer could not claim credit toward minimum wage. However, as long as the employer otherwise meets the minimum wage requirement, the FLSA does not independently prohibit the tip pooling arrangement. The court also rejected use of the Department of Labor’s anti-kickback regulations to prohibit tip pooling. The pooled tips never “belong” to the server, and therefore are not deemed to be an illegal rebate to the employer.

Many states limit the amount of server tips that can be made part of a tip pool. Under North Carolina law, this maximum is fifteen percent.

Author: Patti Farnham

When we go out to eat we often take the waitress for granted. We want her to be doing all she can to help us enjoy our meal. While we are visiting and eating though she is tending to many other people. She has her own method of keeping everyone on track. That is if she is a very good waitress. When you have one that isn’t organized it can be frustrating. At the very least it does interrupt the flow of your meal.

Many who do this type of work depend on waitress tips to help them pay the bills. The paycheck they take from such a job is very low. Depending on where they live it can be just a few dollars an hour to minimum wage. However, a very good waitress at a busy location can more than compensate for it with her tips.

Waitress tips are left by customers who have had a meal there. It isn’t mandatory part of the meal but one that is customary. You will find that some people don’t leave a tip if they are very unhappy with the food or the service. Yet most people will leave something if they feel the waitress made some type of effort to help them have a great dinner out of the house.

That amount can range from a few dollars to much more. It depends on the establishment and those who frequent there. A couple of dollars per person is standard but someone may leave a very nice tip just because they can afford it or they want to do something nice for the waitress.

You will find that waitress tips increase around the holidays too. I guess people just get into the spirit of the holiday. They want to make sure they are giving what they can for others to enjoy it as well. Many waitress tips go to pay for college and other things that can help a person move on to a better job. That means they really do rely on that money to help them make ends meet.

You will find that many restaurants have mandatory waitress tips for large parties. This is because they do consume so much of that waitresses time. Generally this is from 10% to 15% of the total check. Some people don’t think that waitress tips are fair but they leave one anyway. They don’t want to be viewed as being a cheap skate.

For those on the other end of it though, they really need those tips. It can be a long time between paychecks. Knowing you will have some money in your pocket at the end of the shift though can help you to pay for gas, food, and other necessities in between.

Knowing they have to work hard for waitress tips, most of them do their best to earn it. They go out of their way to make sure everyone dining at the restaurant gets the best possible service. This means that the restaurant often gets many return customers which keeps the owner happy as well.

About the Author:
Patti Farnham has a great deal of experience in the hospitality business. You can get more great information at waitress tips. Check out her website Gratuity-Ingenuity.com to learn more on how to make bigger tips.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Waitress Tips Make a Difference

Story from:

By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau
HELENA – Rachel Conn, 27, is a waitress in Helena. She makes $1,100 a month and has $900 in monthly expenses. That leaves her $200 spending money a month, although “spending” in this case, Conn said, also includes inevitable repair bills for her old car and paying all of her medical costs out-of-pocket.

The 2009 Legislature is taking up a bill Wednesday that would freeze Montana’s $6.90 minimum wage for waiters and waitresses like Conn. Any raise she would receive after $6.90 would come out of her tips.

And that, Conn said, is just wrong.

“If you think that people who make minimum wage live in this crazy black hole where (the cost) of everything never changes, I can tell you that’s dead wrong,” she said Tuesday.

Conn plans on telling her story to the Senate Business, Labor and Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning. Lawmakers there are taking the first crack at two bills that would freeze Montana’s minimum wage. Both are sponsored by Republican Sen. Don Steinbeisser, a rancher and sugar beet farmer from Sidney.

His Senate Bill 253 would freeze minimum wage at $6.90 for tipped employees. If the minimum wage increases above $6.90, the employer could make up the difference in the tipped person’s gratuities.

The change would mean that tipped employees would receive less than minimum wage from their employer, provided tips make up the difference. If the employee does not earn enough in tips to meet the new minimum wage, the employer would have to make up the difference.

The committee will also take up Steinbeisser’s companion bill, Senate Bill 254, which removes automatic cost-of-living increases to Montana’s minimum wage.

Montana’s minimum wage is pegged to the national consumer price index, which measures the cost of goods and services. The wage automatically goes up or down each year depending on the cost of living.

That mechanism was put into place after more than 70 percent of Montana voters voted for Initiative 151 in 2006, which increased the minimum wage and called for automatic adjustments.

Steinbeisser said Tuesday he’s got nothing against the minimum wage or waiters and waitresses. But as a senator from a small town, he’s heard from restaurant owners, and even some employees, who say routine raises to the minimum wage, coupled with the recession, has some businesses contemplating closing their doors.

A job with a little less in pay, he said, beats no job at all.

Plus, he said, some waiters and waitresses do very well. Steinbeisser said he knew of one woman who quit her job at a bank because she could make more as a bartender.

Both bills are supported by the Montana Restaurant Association, which asked Steinbeisser to sponsor them.

Brad Griffin, the executive director of the group, said wait staff are usually the best paid people in a restaurant, largely because they receive tips. State and federal increases to the minimum wage have resulted in raise after raise for minimum wage employees.

“It’s been too much, too fast,” Griffin said and restaurant owners can’t absorb the quick uptake in the minimum wage, especially not with the recession, which has fewer people eating out.

The “tip credit” bill, he said, gives restaurant owners some benefit for all they do to create a work environment that leads to bigger tips, things like having a diverse menu, keeping up a nice restaurant and generally providing a quality din-ing experience.

“We don’t begrudge servers from making the money they’re making,” he said. But wait staff are typically the “best paid in the house” and why should they get the same required raises as everyone else when they’re already making more?

Both bills, Griffin said, were also about survival for some businesses who simply cannot afford the double-hit of in-creased labor costs and a drop in business.

Conn, who spoke highly of her boss and said she had no quarrel with her employer, said it’s a common misconception that the wait staff keep all their tips. She said she disburses about 40 percent of her tips to the chefs and bus people who also make the restaurant function. That’s a fairly high percentage, she said, but it’s not uncommon for the wait staff to part with 15 to 30 percent of their tips.

Conn, who also works as a chef, said she understands the hard times business owners are facing. But going after the lowest paid segment of the work force seems wrong, she said.

The less money people have to spend, the less frequently they’ll eat out. That includes wait staff.

“We keep letting people drop off this cliff,” she said. “It’s a step backward.”

Layna George, executive director of Working for Equality and Economic Liberation or WEEL, a Helena-based low-income advocacy group, said minimum wage is still not a living wage and freezing it will only exacerbate the problem.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer also opposes the bills.