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.