Is this something in the Italian culture? Years ago I worked at an Italian restaurant in NYC and they forced me to hand over my tips.
Many other NYC restaurant have been foking out millions, huge settlements. Not just Italian (obviously)
From McDonald’s to Mario Batali, restaurant owners have forked over big bucks in recent years to settle lawsuits brought by workers who claimed they were illegally underpaid.
Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and the Capital Grille eateries in New York and across the country, is the latest to be hit with a lawsuit alleging the type of pay abuses that critics say are rife in the industry.
Darden workers claim that they were forced to work before clocking in, received less than minimum wage without getting the commensurate tip income, and were not paid overtime when forced to work more than 40 hours a week.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/feelin_the_pinch_T6UfchPwMunJUibMV1Un0K#ixzz26dDMz900
Did they use the line that the “tip” was for the entire dining experience? That’s what I was told in my short foray into the restaurant business during college. Large groups of customers (particularly on Sunday) would leave me 20-30 bucks...HUGE for a college student. Had to be left on the table and collected for a “Christmas party fund”...LOL!
They did inform us that if a customer handed us the money personally we could keep it....but who would ever do that? Everyone assumes that if a tip is left the server/bartender will be the beneficiary.
Whoa.. This has nothing to do with Italian restaurants at all.. These practices have been standard operating procedures for over a century, and memorialized in union contracts.. I believe this is the managers, and/or owners, taking the practice to new limits.. This has more to do with pooling tips, to service employees that are not participating in the tip pool, with the owners/managers, taking a cut.. STUPID, CHEAP, and totally unfair.. The unions loved this practice because it allowed the union to insure a piece of the tip pool in forcing the tips were part of the wages, therefore allowing them to their cut..
More like the "restaurant" culture in NYC. A Chinese friend used to take me to many different restaurants in Chinatown. More likely than not I would be the only roundeye there. I was surprised at how many times he would tell me not to leave a tip as it would only go to the owner.
PS, I should have described my old friend as "American" as I was one of his witnesses when he got his citizenship.