Legal Question in Employment Law in Florida

Dear Sir/Madam:

Your question has the following issues.

1. Have you been paid the Federal Minimum Rate?

2. Was a deduction from your paycheck correctly applied?

With respect to the first question. The Federal Law in conjunction with Florida law provides minimum wage for tipped employees and minimum wage. That means that an employee can be paid less than the minimum wage and allowed to credit his/her tips to bring the minimum tipped wage up to the general untipped minimum wage.

The standard is applied over a one week period. As such if you were paid 4.91/hr which represents the minimum tipped employee minimum wage you would have to calculate the number of hours for each respective week and divide your gross pay (including tips) for that week by the number of hours worked. (ex. received $300 for 40 hrs) now if that number is let's say 300 and you divide that by 40 hours the result is $7.50/hr which is under the Minimum Florida wage which is 7.91. Now if you got paid under the minimum wage regardless if you did not make the tips your employer is required by law to supplement that portion to bring your pay to the minimum wage level. If they have failed to do that they might have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Furthermore, an employer is supposed to give a disclosure to employees at the time of hire on whether they would use a tip credit and how is that going to be computed. If the employer failed to do that it broke the law.

Another thing is that if the tip on the bill comes in the form of a service charge (imposed to client, or pre-printed tip) then the employer cannot use that as a tip credit and is a bonus and the employer has to supplement even more your salary to meet the minimum wage. In your situation a competent attorney would have to evaluate your paystubs and your records and make the correct determination.

With respect to the second issue of deducting from your pay. Any deduction made from an employee's paycheck except for withholding Federal and/or State mandated withholdings (which are approved by you at the time of hire) have to be presented and subject to clarification by the human resource department which in your case was not made.

You should seek the services of a competent attorney who on more thorough examination can determine the strength of your claim.

On issues of labor law most attorneys will not charge you a consultation fee and they will not charge you a representation fee to file a claim against your employer. If your employer is found guilty for failure to obey the labor law the attorney will earn its fees from the employer as the federal statutes provide for attorney's fees should you prevail.

Should you need further information or you can contact my office for a free consultation.

Sincerely yours,

Daniel Lenghea