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A nefarious use of these systems is reclassifying normal wage earners as lower paid tipped wage earners. There is a popular brewery in Boston called Trillium b

A nefarious use of these systems is reclassifying normal wage earners as lower paid tipped wage earners. There is a popular brewery in Boston called Trillium brewing that collects tips with these systems for people buying canned beer from behind the register. It’s crazy because you order a case of beer for about $100 and then they default to 20% tip for what is basically a retail transaction, and a lot of people refused to tip. Turns out they started paying people like $5/hr, below normal minimum wage for Boston, because they were classified as tipped staff. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2018/11/21/trouble-brewing-craft-beer-darling-trillium/FIztA8DiIGUqmAO0Ia5yYI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2018/11/21/trouble-bre...

winternett 4y ago
The best way to protest it all is to just pay in cash.
- dcow 4y ago
  Now, if only we had some form of digital cash. Some type of coin made from bits.
tptacek 4y ago
I'm not totally sure I understand the scam here. An employee in Boston must be paid $15/hr in some combination of tips and wages. If tips don't get them there, the employer is obligated to. (You also generally can't use the tipped wage for work that isn't tipped; like, if you have these employees do back-of-the-house work, or cleanup, you can't pay them the tipped wage for those hours --- but I didn't verify that this was the rule in Massachusetts like it is elsewhere). Like: I see what's egregious about this: it would be better for employees to take home $15/hr plus tips, rather than $15/hr and no tips, even though customers tipped. It's a scummy move. But I don't think it could have meant that employees took home $5/hr, right?
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  The federal department of labor has loosened tip pool rules recently to allow back of house staff to share tips with front of house. That doesn’t speak to this issue or mass laws, but it’s something that’s new Germaine to the general conversation
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > An employee in Boston must be paid $15/hr in some combination of tips and wages. Now that, I have a huge problem with. The tips should not be counted toward satisfying the minimum wage. That turns what should be an expression of appreciation for the employee into me just subsidizing the employer's business. If the employer needs more money from me, they should be honest about it and raise their prices.
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    The dishonesty is not in the fact that revenue became wages. That would be the case no matter what. The dishonesty is in the posted price which appears low but doesn't include a culturally expected fee.
- dadrian 4y ago
  The problem with the tip minimum compensation is it's usually calculated over the whole pay period, not each shift. So you could have one shift where you're making an equivalent of $25/hr, and then another where you're only making $5/hr, and if it all averages out, you don't get bumped up on the "slow" shift.

winternett 4y ago

The best way to protest it all is to just pay in cash.

dcow 4y ago
Now, if only we had some form of digital cash. Some type of coin made from bits.

tptacek 4y ago

I'm not totally sure I understand the scam here. An employee in Boston must be paid $15/hr in some combination of tips and wages. If tips don't get them there, the employer is obligated to. (You also generally can't use the tipped wage for work that isn't tipped; like, if you have these employees do back-of-the-house work, or cleanup, you can't pay them the tipped wage for those hours --- but I didn't verify that this was the rule in Massachusetts like it is elsewhere). Like: I see what's egregious about this: it would be better for employees to take home $15/hr plus tips, rather than $15/hr and no tips, even though customers tipped. It's a scummy move. But I don't think it could have meant that employees took home $5/hr, right?

kasey_junk 4y ago
The federal department of labor has loosened tip pool rules recently to allow back of house staff to share tips with front of house. That doesn’t speak to this issue or mass laws, but it’s something that’s new Germaine to the general conversation
JohnFen 4y ago
> An employee in Boston must be paid $15/hr in some combination of tips and wages. Now that, I have a huge problem with. The tips should not be counted toward satisfying the minimum wage. That turns what should be an expression of appreciation for the employee into me just subsidizing the employer's business. If the employer needs more money from me, they should be honest about it and raise their prices.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  The dishonesty is not in the fact that revenue became wages. That would be the case no matter what. The dishonesty is in the posted price which appears low but doesn't include a culturally expected fee.
dadrian 4y ago
The problem with the tip minimum compensation is it's usually calculated over the whole pay period, not each shift. So you could have one shift where you're making an equivalent of $25/hr, and then another where you're only making $5/hr, and if it all averages out, you don't get bumped up on the "slow" shift.