(ETA location: BC Canada)
BOH at a kitchen. I love my work and I love my crew, the higher ups (HUs) though…. fucking fuckerty fuckufers.
So usually we get a handful of cash twice every month for our tips. HUs decide nah, we want to switch to this dumbass prepaid credit card system instead.
Here’s kind of how it works: I get a special credit card that HUs charge up for me to use instead of the tipout. If I need to access this money in any way that is not directly through the card, like if I need cash or if I need to move it to another account to write a cheque with, I have to pay a fee.
I have to pay a free to access my own wages. Or I can exclusively use their credit card to shop with.
So, never mind employees wanting to use their own credit cards with which they might be getting points with that they use for groceries or travel. That’s gone.
Never mind wanting to be able to access YOUR OWN cash without having to pay a fee.
Never mind wanting to be able to transfer YOUR OWN money into your personal savings account without having to pay a fee to BOTH your own bank and to the credit card.
On top of this, the only way to set up this card is by giving personal information such as supplying them your personal phone number as well as having to download their app onto your device. And guess what? Apparently I’m not eligible! Despite the fact that my cell number has been texting just fine for years, the app says it isn’t eligible for text and so I can’t even set up this stupid thing.
Fucking NO ONE on my team including managers are okay with this, but supposedly the other locations’ management outvoted them. We just got these things handed out a day or two ago with our last cash tips.
(And yes this also means all tips are now traceable and must be declared, to be taxed.)
So, my plan so far:
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Confront management about the signup issue: if I can’t even access the card then this whole thing is off the table for me. So do I just not get tips anymore if we can’t fix it?
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Call WorkBC after work tomorrow and do some fact finding about the legality of this and what our rights are as workers when it comes to accessing our wages. May have to be an email thing but the website is unclear regarding this very specific issue so I have to talk to someone either way.
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Enlist my partner’s help to make a confrontation plan and write up for HUs and enlist my manager’s help to gather employee information regarding everyone’s individual bank fees. Basically we are going to see if we can back them into a “pay our fees or drop the cards” corner. My partner spent over five years at Workers Comp doing everything from policy rewrites to communications, balls deep in OHS and labour standards and workers rights. Strong proponent of workers rights, heart of gold. He’s basically going to be our personal consultant on getting a good by-the-book grip on the situation.
I’m gonna have a lot of paperwork to gather up, from bank TOS to prohibited reprisal clause printouts.
Beyond all of this, and short of just fucking off and working somewhere else, what else is there to do? I’m really asking, I’m taking ideas. (And before you all start chanting unionize! unionize! lets try to even get this one small task sorted out first. There’s zero interest and the last guy that tried was fired so we gotta take some baby steps before we start running. But I hear you, and I agree.)