ROC-United
1,000 signatures reached
To: U.S. Department of Labor
Protect restaurant workers from tip theft.
Prohibit restaurants from making servers pay credit card processing fees for credit card tips.
Why is this important?
When a customer pays the tip with a credit card, the money doesn’t always go to the server. Many restaurants allow customers to pay the bill and the tip with their credit card instead of cash. Credit card companies charge separate fees to process both of these transactions. Because the tip has to be processed through the restaurant, the restaurant can legally take a percentage of each tip to pay the transaction fee. In short, restaurants are taking the tip you gave to the employee to pay a business expense.
In many states, servers are only guaranteed $2.13 per hour. The rest of our pay comes directly from guests in the form of the tip. This is an incredibly unstable way to make a living because it’s only social custom that obliges a patron to leave a tip. Regardless of how hard we work or how much the bill is, only the customer’s conscience determines how much we are paid. Meanwhile, if a guest refuses to pay the bill, they could be prosecuted. It is shameful that an industry that doesn’t have to pay its workers a living wage would also steal its workers’ hard-earned money.
In many states, servers are only guaranteed $2.13 per hour. The rest of our pay comes directly from guests in the form of the tip. This is an incredibly unstable way to make a living because it’s only social custom that obliges a patron to leave a tip. Regardless of how hard we work or how much the bill is, only the customer’s conscience determines how much we are paid. Meanwhile, if a guest refuses to pay the bill, they could be prosecuted. It is shameful that an industry that doesn’t have to pay its workers a living wage would also steal its workers’ hard-earned money.
