I work for a catering company. Usually our company caters food and alcohol and staff. For this event only staff was needed.
This was NOT a charity event, yet all of our tips were given to charity!
I found out that day at the event that tips were going to charity, but apparently it was in the “event notes” (that servers and bartenders don't have access to) so our company knew about it beforehand.
On the drink list at the bottom in fine print were the words:
PLEASE NOTE: tipping is not necessary. Any tips received are donated to a local charity.
In my opinion the guests were tipping for our service. For example, I would hand them a drink and they would then put money in the jar. Like a transaction almost. This was an open bar not a cash bar.
We are all paid at least minimum wage. We are paid the minimum wage that is the “non-tipped” amount so $14.20 for my state.
Our employer often says that “tips are not guaranteed” but this is the service industry and people are giving us tips for our service. Even if we're told they aren't guaranteed can they allocate the received tips to go to charity.
If the people that hired us made a stipulation that we are hired with the understanding that tips were going to charity, should our employer have informed us about this beforehand?
I'm wondering what I can do about this situation. I was going to call HR tomorrow and tell them I was upset about this (and another separate thing that occured that evening, we were unprepared for what we were walking into).
But now I'm wondering if I should make a complaint with the state wage/labor and tell them what happened.
What are my options? Thank you for your time.