Online Bill of Rights for Waiters

by Zachary Minot

Labor lawyer Louis Pechman recently told NY Metro "I would suspect more than half of the restaurants in New York City are either intentionally or unintentionally committing some violation of the wage and hour laws every day." To give food service employees a more even playing field, he created Waiterpay.com.

The site covers most of the common situations workers can encounter at their restaurants:

Uniforms- You cannot be charged for buying or cleaning a uniform.

Spread of Hours Pay- You may be entitled to an extra hour of pay when your work day spans more than ten hours.

Deductions- Your restaurant cannot charge you for customer walkouts or breakage.

Tip Pooling- A restaurant tip pool can only include “tipped employees,” not back-of-the-house workers or managers

The site is specific to NYC, but there's tons of information so whether you're an employee or a business owner, make sure to check out the site and become familiar with what's ok and what's not ok in our industry.

Source: Waiterpay.com via The New York Observer

Comments

jtuthill001 • 10/15/2010

On some levels, I do agree with the conceptualism of waiterpay.com. However, I beleive that the scope of this agenda is too limited as front of the house employees are not the only employees subject to the same conflicts. Many employers in this industry do violate the Labor Laws and there is no accountibility nor corrective action taken by New York State in full support of the blue collar workforce and or hospitality employees. In fact, back of the house personnel are even more widely exposed and mistreated because these employees work longer hours and earn significantly less money on a cumulative scale. It is not uncommon for a kitchen employee to be subject to nonpayment of earned wages such as overtime compensation which is required by New York State Labor Laws. Perhaps the founder of this website can create an alternative web address that supports the entire Brigade de Cuisine as it would only be equitable on all levels because we all work hard for a living in this business.