I work a combination retail/barista position in NYC. My employer is doing a few things that I'm almost positive are illegal, but I'm having trouble finding the statutes. If you have text or links for any relevant statutes, laws, or materials I could post at work, I would really appreciate it.

First, a signed credit card receipt was lost. The only damage done here was that the manager had to spend ten minutes finding the sale in the computer to make sure the totals came out right. However, the next day, upper management took the amount of the receipt ($105) out of the tip jar as punishment. It was made explicit that this was done as a punishment for losing the receipt. Keep in mind that all the $105 is doing is sitting in a safe, useless, because there was no problem with the money coming through from the credit card company or anything.

Secondly, my employer is very particular about not paying overtime. If someone is about to get overtime on the last day of the pay period (extra time accumulated from having to stay later to close, usually), they get sent home early with no notice, even though they are scheduled for that time, so that they will not have to be paid overtime. If they are closers, opening managers (who are salaried) are often forced to stay in their place without breaks or extra pay.

If anyone has any links to the applicable laws, I would be ever so grateful.

Thanks,
Emily

I'll let one of the payroll people address the first issue.

It is not even remotely illegal to send someone home to prevent them from going over 40 hours. The law does not require the employer to allow an employee to work overtime. They have no obligation to allow the employee to go into an overtime status.

If by salaried you mean exempt, no exempt employee ever has a legal expectation of receiving anything over and above their regular salary.

Is this jar the "tip pool" to which the directly tipped employees contribute a percentage of their tips?

It's a tip jar that all the tips that people make at the coffee bar goes into. Then it gets split up at the end of every pay period between all the people who ever work at the coffee bar.

That's the only way you get tips, right? Tips are not paid directly to the server? Are you paid at least minimum wage?