Legal Question in Employment Law in New Hampshire
I am a bartender at a hookah bar in New Hampshire. The owner of the bar involves the entire staff in a tip pool. The entire staff includes bartenders, waitress staff, as well as the hookah chefs. We have confronted him on this several times because the people that are owed the tip cash, dont get all the tip cash. By my research, and by just clearly reading Fact Sheet #15, this is not legal. The hookah chefs should not be counted within a tip pool. They are not workers who would customarily receive tips. As most chefs, they have very little interaction with customers at all. After confronting him several times now, he now says that he has spoken with his accountant and that this is all legal. However I do not understand how. Or how a accountant can even determine that when his accountant would only look at the fact of less money output and continuing a higher tip credit. He presses that he can do "whatever he wants" and "nobody has anything on him", but 1 of his employees is not even a legal citizen. So how can he say its legal for him to be a tip pool? On top of this, the "formula" he uses to pay people is not a valid formula to begin with. Here is a breakdown example.
Friday night: $200 in cash tips. $200 in credit card tips. $195 in credit card tips after he takes his mandatory $5 for the credit card processing fees. He also charges a 15% service charge on some Hookahs. But not all. And this money gets put into the tip jar as well. So he counts them as tips. So lets say there is a extra $50 in the jar due to this. So total tips is $445.
Working this night is A bartender, started at 7pm. Ended at 2am. 2 Floor staff, started at 9pm ended at 2am. 2 Hookah Staff, started at 7pm ended at 2am. But on the formula they only receive 5 hours each. And then he also adds a Hookah Tab on that as well, and attaches 5 hours to it. The hookah tab being defined as the owner. So here we have a total of 32 Hours total. So we would then take $445 and divide by the 32 hours. So then we would have $13.91 as a hourly wage. When calculated, the number will be rounded down, and the bartender would get the remaining. So by the calculation, Each floor staff will then receive $65. Each Hookah Staff would receive $65. And the "Hookah" would receive $65. And the bartender would receive $120.
Now the bartender knowing they have crazy busted butt all night long, along with the floor staff, and seeing the hookah staff sit around all night and not to much of anything, and not help service customer, all these other staff go home with all this money that the bartender worked very hard for to receive. But yet only goes home with a fraction of what they earned. And on top of this, the owner typically still gives the hookah staff more cash on top of what they received.
This is very frustrating to not only myself, but to the other staff that depends on these tips. And frustrated because there is alot more activity within the establishment that is not legally acceptable as well. And now that I personally keep confronting the issue, I feel as if my job is on the line with all the comments he makes. I need help, and need answers. Because something needs to change with this.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Do not put your job in jeopardy. Report anything that seems suspicious or illegal to the appropriate governing authorities. You may want to look into the following:
Dept. of Labor: http://www.nh.gov/labor/contact-us/
Dept. of Revenue: http://revenue.nh.gov/contact-us/index.htm
Human Rights Commission: https://www.nh.gov/hrc/contactus.html
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