Tip theft

Protecting Tipped Workers Across Restaurants, Salons, and Hospitality

If you work in a tipped position—such as a waiter, busser, bartender, delivery driver, or nail technician—your tips likely belongs to you and not your employer under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the state labor law. Under these laws, employers cannot skim your gratuities, manipulate tip pools, or enrich management at your expense.

Troy Law, PLLC is a recognized leader in fighting tip theft and bringing class and collective actions to restore stolen gratuities to service workers.

The Tipped Employee Bill of Rights

• 100% Tip Retention: Employers must deliver the full amount of your tips. They cannot keep gratuities or use them to cover business expenses, walkouts, or lost silverware.
• No Managers or Supervisors in Tip Pools: Tip pools can only be shared among valid, front-of-house service staff. Including shift leaders, managers, owners, or kitchen staff (in tip-credit establishments) is illegal tip theft.
• Strict Limits on Credit Card Processing Fees: Employers cannot deduct excessive processing charges from credit card tips to turn a profit on your hard work.
• Loss of the “Tip Credit”: If an employer fails to provide proper written notice of the tip credit, requires non-tipped work beyond legal limits, or skims tips, they forfeit the tip credit entirely and must pay you full back minimum wage plus your stolen tips.

You are not alone. Federal labor laws protect all workers regardless of immigration status or tax filing history. Under federal law, when an employer fails to keep accurate time records, the court relies on your credible testimony to calculate what you are owed. We know the tricks employers pull—such as denying you worked there or forging signatures—and we know how to defeat them in court.