Enough said?

Well, it seems like you left out the part that explains how it makes sense for anyone to work under those conditions, but I think at this point it might just be better to accept that we’re never going to be in agreement on this.

My point is simply that employers and employees should be at liberty to freely engage in almost any arrangement they wish without state intervention. Clearly you think otherwise. Thanks for the exchange, but now its time to move on.

The restraunt I’m referring to is a fairly busy place that sells food and beer. The table turnover is high and for the most part the tips are good. Their policy is that they take 30% of each customer’s bill from the waitress’ pay for income taxes. They assume that she is making more than that 30% in tips. At the end of the week the 30% is added up and subtracted from her hourly wage. 9 times out of 10 this leaves a negative balance which the waitress has to pay. 9 times out of 10 this amount is more than the owner has to pay in Social Security and unemployment taxes. Thus the owner is getting his waitresses for free and sometimes actually making a profit from them on a good week. Enough said?

Regarding the following….

I watched a girl work a 50 hour week and be told that she OWED the restraunt money on payday! They took 30% of the bill of each customer that she waited on from her paycheck. It was assumed that she was getting at least this much in tips from each customer. In other words she was working for FREE and strangely enough this was PERFECTLY LEGAL!

Please be a little more descriptive so we can understand why she might be expected to receive tips that high and whether all the other waitresses also worked there for free.

I watched a girl work a 50 hour week and be told that she OWED the restraunt money on payday! They took 30% of the bill of each customer that she waited on from her paycheck. It was assumed that she was getting at least this much in tips from each customer. In other words she was working for FREE and strangely enough this was PERFECTLY LEGAL!

THe customers give the tips under the presumption that they are going to the barista’s…

Maybe that was your assumption, but when tips are put in a jar, any assumption about how they’re going to be divided up is merely a guess.

The company uses this technique to lower its out of pocket expenses for the supervisor - they can pay less than the going rate knowing the difference will be made up by the tips which are taken under pain of job loss from the other employees.

So what? Any employee there can walk out of they don’t like it. It’s not as if Starbuck’s is the only game in town. Employers are only obligated to pay what it takes to get the quality of help they need. Unless they’re having a chronic shortage of people willing to take the jobs, their pay rate must be sufficient. If you’re in business and you’re not trying to control payroll costs, then you’re an idiot. The bottom line is that it should be up to the business owner, not the state to dictate compensation practices. When you turn that authority over to the state, it’s no longer a free market.

I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I’m a big believer in the free market and what’s going on at Starbuck’s in not unethical if the employees are aware of the practice and accept it as a condition of working there. The alternative is to quit, not get the state to come in and impose rules (by force) more pleasing to those who have nothing invested in the enterprise.

The only people robbed here was Starbuck’s and the fact that it was the state legislature holding the gun doesn’t make it any less of a robbery.

I worked for various Starbucks stores for a number of years. No one ever had any problems with Shifts being granted a part of the tip pie (which wasn’t ever very much anyways). In fact, I never even heard it brought up or discussed.

This is a ridiculous non-issue that has been leapt upon by opportunistic lawyers. It has nothing to do with an “unscrupulous corporation exploiting it’s workers”.

…the reprehensible practice of management forcibly helping themselves to a percentage of the wait staff’s tips…

So… They actually held those poor waiters down and rifled through their pockets pilfering those hard earned dollars after promising them that the tips were absolutely only for the waiters, huh? And they did this week after week as they kept that wait staff chained up, preventing them from quiting and going someplace where they wouldn’t be exploited so horrendously. Surely no waiter with a friggin’ brain would repeatedly go back for that kind of “reprehensible” abuse voluntarily. Of course, there’s always the possibility they were too stupid to realize they were being abused and didn’t know the government was there to save them from their own ignorance.

Sounds to me like the only reprehensible practice going on here is a state government trampling a restaurant’s right to establish its own employee compensation policies in a free market.

THe judge in this case is only returning the ACTUAL amount owed. THis is the amount that starbuck’s, according to california law, actually stole from the barristas. Where is the disincentive to cheat the law? This verdict sends the message go ahead and steal from the employees, because in the unlikely event you get caught you will only have to return the money that wasn’t yours in the first place, you will still break even - this is a good bet. Triple damages should have been awarded. If a barrista had stolen $20 from the till do you think starbucks would have said “its OK if you just put $20 back, we’ll call it even?”

Now STFU and just be glad that California is vigilantly on guard against the forces of exploitation and quit questioning minor trivia like whether it’s right or wrong.

Starbuck’s is a big corporation. They should know all the laws and they should know precisely how those laws are going to be interpreted by the government and the courts. There is no room for error here. It’s black and white. Starbuck’s should have caved in and begged for forgiveness and mercy at the first hint of government disapproval. Their mistake is thinking that the government could be wrong and for that those bastards deserve everything they get. How dare they!

But it wasn’t expected, and I don’t recall anyone ever getting any dirty looks if they didn’t tip. The only time the baristas would get upset was if someone would casually reach into the tip jar and grab a few bills to pay for their drink because - “Hey, I don’t wanna break a 100!” I think it’s a psychological thing - if you put out a jar for tips, regardless or whether you’re in a job that traditionally gets tipped or not - some people will toss money in it. On the other hand, from the regular customers who came in each day for (and this is an order I am not making up) a “half-caf, grande, 2% but with whole foam, 1 pump vanilla, 2 pumps hazelnut, extra hot cappucino”, the spare change they tossed in the jar for the trouble of having to mix up a special pitcher of milk for their ‘2%’ (Starbucks doesn’t carry 2%) plus steam a separate pitcher of whole milk for their ‘whole foam’ was appreciated.

On the subject of shift supes - they were regular baristas that worked the bar and the register right along with the rest of us. They just also had to count the tills and handle opening and closing duties. I don’t think it ever occurred to anyone I worked with to object to them getting a share of the tips as well - they were serving drinks and mopping floors, too.

Plus, who tips at Starbucks? I don’t remember seeing a tip jar and the baristas aren’t making two bucks an hour like your typical tip earning waitress.

Watch overlawyered, I’ll bet something shoes up soon.

Such a goofy thing to think or say. Most (if not all) states, counties and cities have 100s of laws that for one reason or another are intentionally ignored or not enforced. Here’s a contest for ignored or unenforceable laws. http://www.nmlawcontest.com/ Police, prosecutors and judges often treat laws as merely suggestions. After all who’s going to stop them? I could list more examples but just Google “ignored laws.”

And besides… shift supervisors were obviously born with a silver spoon in their mouths.