You're cut from tables. Now, you have two hours of side work before you can leave.

 

 

Sound familiar?

 

It's one thing for your employer to pay you $4.90 per hour to serve tables. It's entirely different for your employer to pay you the same rate to roll silverware, clean and stock and restock condiments, polish silverware and glassware, etc., while the restaurant is slow and/or for an hour or two after you're cut.

 

Don't let your employer fool you. They can't do this to you that without paying
you more money.

 

Under the Department of Labor's Field Operations Handbook, which guides the FLSA, you are entitled to be paid the full minimum wage (rather than the low server rate) for ALL time spent performing this side work where this side work regularly exceeds 20% of your shift times.

 

It's monumentally unfair that many employers exploit the tip credit so they can pay their servers and bartenders next to nothing to perform menial, busy work for which they should receive AT LEAST the full minimum wage.