A coffee shop attached to a bar/restaurant in Texas hired me at an hourly rate of $15 plus tips. My first paycheck for an hour of training was roughly $14 after taxes. My next paycheck was also at an hourly rate of $15, roughly 28 hours with a net pay of $367. For whatever reason, the tips were not added onto this paycheck. I, stupidly, figured this was some sort of oversight and notified my managers. They all gave me the run around until the next pay period and told me they cut me a check for the tips. It mysteriously disappeared. Of course.
My next paycheck had an hourly rate of $7.25, more than a 50% decrease. The tips were added onto the check for this pay period. With the tips added, it equaled to a hourly rate of, you guessed it, $15 (net pay of roughly $514 for almost 40 hours). I notified my manager of this and he told me that the “minimum hourly pay with tips” will be $15. He then had the gall to tell me it would have been $23 an hour if my hourly pay wasn't reduced to minimum wage. And that's what I can “potentially” make with the reduced hourly pay. Interesting.
I then demanded for the dozenth time the tips from the prior pay period. After making me work/wait for at least another hour, they cut me a check for roughly $60 which equated to roughly an extra $2 an hour for the prior pay period. At this point, I'd had enough of their garbage and clocked out and walked out. Bullshit.
From my basic understanding of labor laws, this is textbook wage theft. I was never informed in any way of the hourly pay decrease after the first pay two periods. They are almost certainly withholding or stealing tips. My tips per hour increased fourfold after decreasing my hourly pay by more than half. Quite peculiar.
I am looking into filing complaints with the TWC and the TABC, among other things. Any advice on how else to proceed would be greatly appreciated.