andrewisonline
02-08-2007, 06:15 PM
on january 2nd, i informed my restaurant (where i am a server) of my intention to reduce my availability from 24/7 to just 2 night shifts a week, effective feb.1. they agreed to this in principle, but said that come the end of the month, they would re-evaluate their labor needs, and determine whether they would need to keep me on staff with such limited availability.
on january 7th, the restaurant changed our tipping policy, and required us to tip 0.5% of sales to the supervisor pool. the supervisor is a lead server who runs the restaurant for the last 3 hours or so, after the GM leaves for the night. in addition to the upper level responsibilities, the supervisor is still serving his own section, plus makes $2 more per hour than the other servers on the floor.
on top of unfairly having us tip a supervisor, management expects us to tip this percentage out regardless of whether we work with the supervisor. that is to say, if i work a midday shift, say 2-10, and the GM is on the floor the whole time, i am still required to tip this position. the tips are then divided at the end of the week to the appropriate supervisors based on hours.
i discussed my opposition to this policy with the GM, along with 5 other co-workers, and was subseqently dismissed on january 13th (no one else was dismissed). i knew that i faced the possibility already of not holding employment there beyond the end of the month, but i still feel that i was unfairly dismissed because of a professional protest to a seemingly illegal policy. do i have any legitimate justification to pursue this legally and try to recoup the lost wages for those 18 days i missed, since they had already agreed to let me continue to work there at least until the end of the month? is a company allowed to dismiss someone without discretion once they give notice? what should my former co-workers that still work there do to rectify this situation?
thanks for any help you can offer.
on january 7th, the restaurant changed our tipping policy, and required us to tip 0.5% of sales to the supervisor pool. the supervisor is a lead server who runs the restaurant for the last 3 hours or so, after the GM leaves for the night. in addition to the upper level responsibilities, the supervisor is still serving his own section, plus makes $2 more per hour than the other servers on the floor.
on top of unfairly having us tip a supervisor, management expects us to tip this percentage out regardless of whether we work with the supervisor. that is to say, if i work a midday shift, say 2-10, and the GM is on the floor the whole time, i am still required to tip this position. the tips are then divided at the end of the week to the appropriate supervisors based on hours.
i discussed my opposition to this policy with the GM, along with 5 other co-workers, and was subseqently dismissed on january 13th (no one else was dismissed). i knew that i faced the possibility already of not holding employment there beyond the end of the month, but i still feel that i was unfairly dismissed because of a professional protest to a seemingly illegal policy. do i have any legitimate justification to pursue this legally and try to recoup the lost wages for those 18 days i missed, since they had already agreed to let me continue to work there at least until the end of the month? is a company allowed to dismiss someone without discretion once they give notice? what should my former co-workers that still work there do to rectify this situation?
thanks for any help you can offer.
