Restaurant employees given $61,000 after managers caught dipping into tip pool, federal agency says
The U.S. Department of Labor recovered thousands in tips for employees at a New Hampshire restaurant where managers improperly took their own cuts from the employee tip pool, the department’s Wage and Hour Division announced.
Dos Amigos Burritos, a restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire, wrongfully included managers in its employee tip pool, which led the federal agency to recover $61,788 in tips and liquidated damages for 39 workers.
“Tipped workers in the food services industry rely on their hard-earned tips to make ends meet. Restaurant employers must understand that keeping workers’ tips or diverting a portion of these tips to managers or supervisors in a tip pool is illegal,” Steven McKinney, the division’s district director in Manchester, New Hampshire, said in a news release.
As of April 30, 2021, the department ruled “an employer cannot keep employees’ tips under any circumstances; managers and supervisors also may not keep tips received by employees, including through tip pools.”
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Last year, more than a dozen employees received $41,000 from the Department of Labor after a restaurant in Pittsburgh was caught misusing the tip pool, KDKA reported. North Side restaurants in Pittsburgh were forced to pay $41,500 over tips illegally shared with managers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in December 2021.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Managers can’t dip into employee tip pool: Department of Labor
