Why are waitresses not paid minimum wage?

Answer 1

I find myself wondering the same thing.

Why are the employers allowed to expect their customers to make up the difference? In most states tips are not required, but are expected.

I think eating establishments should raise the prices on food in order to provide a livable salary for their staff. That way servers do not have to depend on the kindness of strangers.

Answer 2

The sub-minimum wages are based on the premise that the wait staff will earn enough tips to equal minimum wage, and taxes equal to the tax debt on minimum wage are withheld.

In a good restaurant, that is often a correct assumption. Lots of waitresses and waiters make a pretty good living from tips. But that is not always the case.

Doc Hudson

Answer 3

You should be docked for the time you're not there, I think you'll agree to that. Check with the NYS labor board. They may have something on this. Or: Try this. All of you get together, show up 15 minutes late. If they dock you, walk out. This has to be a team effort regardless of cost. $30 is minuscule, but $30 x 5 day = $150 weekly x 52 weeks = $7800 year - not minuscule. The Labor Department won its lawsuit against Cabaret Royale after six years of asserting that the topless club had failed to pay millions of dollars in wages to its dancers and waitresses. The decision could cost Cabaret Royale as much as $10 million, as well as fundamentally alter how it and other topless clubs do business. Legal finding from a news article (precedent setting). You'll have to do more research on your part : The federal agency accused the "gentleman's club" of a number of labor violations, including failure to pay minimum wage. The nightclub managers, according to the Labor Department, also inappropriately deducted tip money from waitresses and dancers' pay checks and diverted the funds to the business. Lindsey, who now manages the Million Dollar Saloon topless club, said the judge's ruling will change the way the topless industry does business--forcing nightclubs to pay dancers as employees and prohibiting the bars from taking portions of the women's earnings. Most topless bars treat dancers as independent contractors.

Answer 4

They are.

Waitress minnimum wage.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic.

Everyone else doesn't make tips like a waitress does(for the most part). If a waitress didn't make tips, they would be paid regular minimum wage.

Answer 5

If they made the same minimum wage as everyone else, the restaurants would have to charge so much for meals that only the very wealthy could ever afford to eat out.

Answer 6

it's a loop hole for the employer to not have to pay as much. they get paid minimum wage when they're closing or opening the store and there aren't any customers and IF they don't get enough tips to average minimum wage per hour, the employer has to pay them the difference.

Answer 7

I suspect that became the custom when times were harder and people expected a lot less from an employer-now, why should the restaurants change it? They save money and as someone said, the kindness of the patrons is supposed to take care of the wait staff. Sucks if you ask me-that's why I tip well for anything above totally crummy service.

Answer 8

Because we get good tips...and that makes up for minimum wage...

Answer 9

because they make most of their money in tips and its not cost effective for restruants to pay them more. that and it puts them in a different tax bracket.

Answer 10

because they make their money in tips from customers