“No one wants to work anymore,” cries the ruling class while doing everything they can to siphon more and more away from their employees.
The calling card of horrible employers makes it sound like the workers are the unreasonable ones, but if you scratch the surface just a bit, you discover that they don’t want workers; they want unlimited free labor.
Boss Cutting Pay and Stealing Tips
Sometimes, bosses skirt the law to get what they want. An employee at a pizza parlor came to the internet to share their story about a horrible boss who thought cutting pay and stealing tips was acceptable.
The Original Poster (OP) explained that the boss called everyone in for a “tough conversation,” declaring he was cutting everyone’s pay by $3 per hour due to inflation and the pending recession.
But that’s not all.
The boss also demanded that all staff tithe 25% of their tips directly to him, and he insisted they come in five minutes early and stay five minutes late, all off-clock, of course, to cover prep and cleaning.
OP Venting
A gracious OP wants to be compassionate. They understand times are hard for everyone, but thinks the boss’s demands are outrageous. OP never sees the boss eating the food at the pizza parlor, which would be a top choice if they were genuinely starving.
They came to Reddit to vent, but users were appalled at the boss’s awful and likely illegal behavior.
Wage Theft
Many users said the boss’s demands don’t sound legal.
Of course, everything depends on where OP is from, but in the US, forcing employees to work any amount of unpaid time is illegal wage theft. Tipped employees also have no obligation to share tips with a manager unless the manager is also doing tipped work.
“Report this, “insisted that we come 5 minutes early and leave 5 minutes late, unpaid to cover prep work and cleaning,” to your state’s department of labor,” advised one user, pointing to the unpaid labor.
Another discussed the legality of tip sharing. “Employers can receive tips, but they cannot commingle tips with their employees. If they did 50% of a job that was tipped, they get 0% of the tips. If they did 100% of the job, they get 100% of the tips,” they said.
Both users are right. Requiring employees to stay on the job without pay sounds like a clear violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The act also regulates tips.
These practices both fall under wage theft, an illegal practice where managers steal time and money from employees through shady business practices.
Can They Just Change Your Pay Like That?
The pay cut portion is questionable. In the US, pay cuts are usually legal, especially in at-will employment states. Pay cuts must not be discriminatory or retaliatory and must be implemented equally across the board.
In addition, pay can’t be cut below minimum wage.
Many states require some type of advance notice on pay cuts. Laws vary wildly by state. Some require a certain amount of advance notice, while others require written notification and acknowledgment. We need to know where OP lives (they may not even be in the US) to know whether the pay cut was legal.
Report the Employer to the Labor Board
Regardless of whether the pay cut is legal, the other two demands aren’t. OP should report the employer to the Department of Labor and their state’s labor board if they live in the US or the equivalent in their country of residence.
Time for a New Job
OP also needs to look for a new job. Such drastic measures portend severe problems for the business. It sounds like the boss is running the pizza parlor into the ground, and rather than making changes that would increase sales, he’s taking it out on the workers.
What will happen when there’s nothing left to cut?
OP and his colleagues should look for a new job. We don’t imagine the pizza place will survive much longer.