tip in cash

Please tip your server in cash. Even in “respectable” restaurants, the management all-too-often keeps some of that tip money. According to Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Americans Are Not Getting Paid–and What We Can Do About It (by Kim Bobo, The New Press, revised ed. 2011), keeping tip money is *one* of the ways that unscrupulous employers steal money from their employees.

I have worked as a server. After tipping the bartender, and the busser, I totaled all of my receipts and turned in the money to the manager. I knew how much was due the restaurant, and I knew how much I’d earned in tips. If I had enough cash, I could just keep the tip money, and turn in the credit card receipts (and the excess cash). If I didn’t have much cash, I had to wait for the company to pay me the cash I had earned as tips. I was fortunate (and white, and male)–I was always paid what I had earned. Many are not paid what they earned, and have little recourse to combat their mistreatment.

By all means, pay for your meal with a credit card, if you like. But do please tip your server in cash.

Learn more at Interfaith Worker Justice; and check out their “Tip in Cash” FB page.

(original post, with links, at So May We Be)