As someone who put themselves through college on pizza delivery... > but the employer would still have to cough that 15 bucks if they didn't make enough in tip

As someone who put themselves through college on pizza delivery... > but the employer would still have to cough that 15 bucks if they didn't make enough in tips. This gets you fired. You'll get your requested increased compensation in your next check, and the following week you're reduced to about 5 hours of work total. The following week after that you're let go for poor performance because if you're the only employee asking for tip compensation you're basically admitting you don't get tipped as well as other employees. Not that I agree earning low tips is synonymous with poor performance, but try convincing a stereotypical crappy manager that. It's also one of those situations where the people getting screwed over don't really have the means to defend themselves. If $400 in missing wages is a big deal (as it should be), one isn't really able to hire a lawyer to take care of the case for them. Also people lie. I worked at Burger King as a teen and the manager would lie to everyone, saying if he found out they were applying for other jobs they would be fired. Super illegal, and he has no way of even knowing outside of reference calls. But pretty much every older employee believed him and didn't want to risk homelessness because they tried switching jobs. I remember telling him something along the lines of "Fuck off, I'm 16 and live with my parents"(he thought I was older), but it didn't hit me until years later that he was basically keeping the other employees his prisoners.