I recently moved here and began a job as a server.

We tip out 3% of our sales to bar, host, and busser, and I'm fine with that.

However, they now tell me I am required to tip out five dollars cash every night to the foodrunner no matter how much I make.

This is angering me because I have only been getting about three tables a night before I get cut. I make about $25 in tips, then get the 3% of sales taken out, reducing it to around $20. Then they tell me to give one fourth of what I have left to the foodrunner, who ran a total of six plates for me all night, and has no sidework when they get cut.

In essence, the foodrunner is walking with about $50 for two hours work and I am stuck busting my butt to make tables happy and pray they leave 20%, then doing 30-45 minutes of sidework on a $4/hr timeclock.

In Arizona I know management is not allowed to tell servers how much to tip out, but what about Colorado?

This is really more complex than I have dealt with before in the industry. Give the state Dept. of Labor a call. I agree that tipping out 25% of your remaining tips after contributing to the tip pool, seems unreasonable. And, of course, if after such tipping out, if you do not average at least minimum wage for all hours in the workweek, the employer must make up the difference. Are you being paid the sub-minimum wage for directly-tipped employees?