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Letter: Tipping waitresses

July 23, 2007

Dear Editor,

In response to the letter about not being able to live off of measly tips: Your employer is required to pay you the difference between what you make in tips and the current minimum wage. He is required to pay you at least $2.13 an hour, even if your tips add up to be over the minimum wage. If you are not being paid what you are entitled to, you should file a complaint. That is illegal, and they will make him pay you any back wages to which you are entitled.

Your letter implies that you are only paid $2.13 an hour, and if you only receive a few dollars in tips on any given day, that is all you have to live on. You are guaranteed minimum wage, even if you never receive a tip. You can make over minimum wage if you earn enough in tips.

Yes, I believe employers should have to pay minimum wage, and any tips you are given should be yours because the customer was happy with your service and believed you deserved a little extra pay for it. But that is not the way it is, and most patrons are aware of that. I know some people wouldn't tip enough, or at all, even if the wage laws were different. But all of that is a whole different discussion.

If you want to complain about the wage law that allows your tips to be counted as part of your salary, I agree with you. If you want to complain about how hard it is to live on minimum wage, I agree with you.

But there are a lot of people out there working service jobs for minimum wage. Do you tip the clerk that runs the cash register at the grocery store and the guy in the back of McDonald's cooking hamburgers?

You shouldn't blast the customers and tell them to eat at home if they are not going to tip. If the customers all eat at home, you won't have a job at all, and it's a lot tougher to get by on no job than on a minimum wage job.

Sheila McDonald

Liberty

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