Most of the time, when employees receive tips, those tips are given directly to the employees. A customer may just leave cash on the table for a server, for example. If they pay with a credit card, which is increasingly more common, then they may leave a tip on that credit card.
Tip pooling, on the other hand, is when all of the tips are gathered together at the end of the night. These tips are then split up equally among the entire waitstaff.
Generally speaking, this is not prohibited under Illinois law. Employees do not always prefer tip pools because they may feel that they have earned more than their fellow coworkers but are still being paid the same amount in tips when everything is equally divided. But as long as those tips still go to the group of employees that earned them, tip pooling can be instituted.
Employers cannot be included
One of the biggest issues that arises, however, is when someone who did not earn the tips is included in the pool. This could be a supervisor, a manager or a business owner.
The key thing to keep in mind is that an employer cannot be added to a tip pool and cannot take a portion of the tips. Even if the employer helped the waitstaff by carrying items to customers’ tables, for example, they still cannot be included with the other tipped employees. This could be a form of wage theft because the full value of the tips is not going to the waitstaff.
In some cases, tip pooling is instituted legally and used appropriately. But in other cases, there are significant conflicts and wage and hour disputes. It is important for those involved to understand what legal steps to take.
