I work for a BBQ restaurant in Kansas that does quite a bit of catering and heavy to-go’s, the tips from the caters and some of the bigger to-go’s are pooled and split between the kitchen and the person bagging/running the cater.
The restaurant I work in is actually run by my fiancée’s mom (C) currently, so this is where my struggles lie. The managers on duty all take part in the tip pool, taking equal or heavier parts of the tip, I’m honestly pretty sure (C) specifically has taken a whole $60-$80 tip from us without splitting it at all. I’m like 99.99% certain this is illegal and immoral but I’m not sure how to go about trying to correct this. I’ve brought up the law to my future mother-in-law several times but since she’s the GM she thinks she’s all knowing or something and states “I know the law. I’ve been doing this for forever. This is allowed” but a simple google search can say otherwise. I’ve brought up going to the labor board about it to my fiancée, but she quickly shot me down because she doesn’t want her mom getting in trouble or losing her job, since she has a 14 year old sister she’s concerned about. What makes it worse is (C) is also GM-ing another store in Oklahoma where this is happening but times 10. She just told us about how her shift manager had been taking practically all of the tips at her other store and distributing like $10 per person who worked on it. The last tip he did that with was like $200 and he walked away from it with $140 and split $60 between like 4-6 people.
I guess I’m just not sure if this is legal or not, and if it isn’t – do y’all have any advice?