I work for a food truck that is the only food option at a Biergarten. We make a lot of money in tips as a result of that.
Last year tips were given based off of when you worked. If 5 people worked on one day, 3 on 12 hour shifts, and two on 6 hour shifts, the 3 on the 12 hour would get a quarter of all tips made and the other 2 would make their percentage of the tips made from 11am-5pm and 5pm-11pm respectively.
This year, all of the tips are now pooled and divided into one hourly rate that everybody makes. It could be insanely busy from 11am-5pm and dead from 5pm-11pm, but the person working the night shift still makes the 30 dollars an hour from all the work everyone else did earlier in the day.
On top of this, we opened a second food truck serving a different type of food this year. The new truck sells a fraction of the food that the original one does, and those employees often take turns napping on that truck or come over to hang with us while we bust our ass. The tips are split regardless of which truck you work on, so everyone that sits on their ass all day on the new truck makes the same huge amount in tips that the rest of us worked for.
This can’t be legal, right? Any insight would be appreciated.