So, a little bit about me; I’m a 21 year old University Student living in a small town in Ontario, Canada. When I moved back home in late April I started looking for jobs, and landed one at my town’s brewery as a server/bartender in around the first week of May.
I’d never worked a job waiting tables before, most of my previous jobs have been behind-the-counter work at either fast food restaurants or retail establishments, so there was a bit of learning I had to do once I was hired, but I was constantly reassured by coworkers, customers, and even my manager that I was doing a good job and making great progress.
Now, I had never met the owners really, they were a husband and wife who never really showed up. The wife (referred to hereafter as ‘B’) briefly came by on my very first day, I said hello and shook her hand, she went to talk to the manager about something, and left. The husband (referred to hereafter as ‘A’) had called the place once to talk to the manager (Referred to hereafter as ‘C’) but she wasn’t in that day. Aside from that, I didn’t interact with them at all. I did hear from C that they were both particularly stingy, and that they had been cutting her hours a lot, to the point where she had to go look for a second job, despite being the ONLY MANAGER WE HAD. From what I’ve heard, she’s no longer working there.
Now, how tipping worked is, if a table paid in cash, they’d let you keep it and deduct it from your card tips, which was much more common. However, if your cash exceeded what you were tipped, you would owe some of that cash to the house, and 2% of your overall tips went to the kitchen. (It was like $2 per server most nights split between four people, which is kinda shitty in hindsight)
I didn’t understand how the shift reports worked, and rather than guide me through the process so I could do it myself, my manager would just do it for me, until the day I was working and she wasn’t there. I had never owed cash to the house up until then, and I didn’t know what to check for to see if I did, so I wound up leaving that day owing about $32. Now, that’s my mistake, I understand and can take responsibility for it, which I did. I got a text late that night from C saying “Oku, you owed the house $32 tonight, where did you put it?” I had a copy of my shift report, and after she directed me to where it said I owed the money, I apologized, said I had it, and that I would return it the next day. No response.
The next morning I go to the bank to break the cash I owe into smaller bills (plus a Toonie) and I go to the brewery where C is working. I apologize again for the mixup and hand her the cash, and she says that A would just deduct it out of my paycheque for that pay period. Fair enough, I suppose, and I leave.
A couple days go by (days I WORKED, mind you) and then everything is silent. On the day our schedules for the week were meant to be released, I get nothing, so I text C, who a few minutes later sends me an email saying that they have “Made the decision to terminate my employment after a complaint they received from a customer.” Confusing, but whatever. My last summer job had, funnily enough, sent me an offer to work for this summer as well just two hours later, which I accepted and am currently loving.
The problem was, when I checked the payment app on payday to collect my final paycheque, I found out that I had only been paid $15.50 (Minimum wage for 1 hour in Ontario) which was WAAAAYYYY less than what I was owed, including hours worked plus tips. I reach out to C multiple times over the course of the next few weeks, she says she’ll talk to A and B, but nothing comes of it. Eventually I learn through my friends that the owners have been seen working full days there (I’m assuming because C quit and nobody there had the experience to lead.) So I go over there, see B working at the bar, and simply say “Hi! I’m Oku, I recently worked here. You guys owe me a lot of money.”
B goes back and gets A, who brings me over to a table and tells me he didn’t pay me because I stole from him, and even threatened to call the police and have me arrested. I explained that upon realizing my mistake I had told C that I would pay what I owed, and she said it would be deducted from my next paycheque. And I know damn well I made more than $47.50 for those two weeks. A then told me that he couldn’t do that, so theft was theft. I explained that, for one, if his MANAGER is telling employees that he can do things he can’t, that’s a conversation he needs to have with her, her spreading misinformation is not my problem. For another, if theft was theft, what makes him think he can get away with such blatant wage theft? He said that he would have me in cuffs if he didn’t have such high respect for my my mom (which is ridiculous, he does not know my mother at all, and she even said this when she came into the brewery herself.)
Eventually we reached a bit of a stalemate, sort of an “Unstoppable force meets immovable object” kind of thing. So we decided to just file a claim with the Ministry of Labour. It’s been two months, almost three with no contact at all. I called them, they haven’t even looked at it yet due to a high volume of claims, which I understand, but I’m not sure what else to do. I have university fees to pay off, and while I didn’t work there long, the tips were great and I was making good money. Is there any other way I can get what he owes me? (LEGALLY lol)