My boss claims the registers of our fast-casual restaurant have been short every day for the past 2 months. However, there has been no pattern of who may be causing them to be short, and it could just be an error in the system when it cashes out 3rd party orders like Doordash.
So what does my boss do? We have a tip jar, where customers put money in to help the poor minimum wage slaves. But my boss takes them all “to make up for the short drawers”. We get credit card tips, but he claims that cash tips are “a priveledge” and he can choose not to hand them out.
What little of our skeleton crew that's still left is mad about this, but nobody is brave enough to do anything. There is a debate among us of whether he is legally correct and morally wicked, or is doing something illegal and lying to us. For all we know, he could just be lying about short drawers and pocketing everything.
Is my boss doing something illegal? If so, what can be done without stirring to much drama? I just want my couple bucks a shift.