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phgq · 4 years

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Blind masseurs in Iligan City find alternative livelihood

#PHnews: Blind masseurs in Iligan City find alternative livelihood

ILIGAN CITY - Blind masseurs are finding themselves another alternative livelihood after the Covid-19 pandemic cost them their jobs.

When the pandemic started in March, non-essential businesses, including massage clinics, were shutdown.

They lost their jobs when the massage clinic in a mall they worked for almost a year was closed because of the crisis.

Jonathan Javier, Jury Bagcat, Alex and his wife Leonica were among the 28 blind masseurs in Iligan City who had to make ends meet at the start of the pandemic to continue living.

They were forced to look for another source of income even if it is hard for them because of their physical disability.

As masseurs, each of them used to earn PHP600 to PHP700 pesos a day.

The daily income before the pandemic was enough for Jonathan and Jury to buy their daily food supply, pay monthly rent and electric bills.

They still have enough for their daily fare because they live in Barangay Ditucalan, around 10 kilometers away from the city proper.

When the massage clinic they worked for was closed on March 18, they have nothing to do for a living but wait for barangay officials or their friends and relatives to give them food.

But because they are not used to dole outs, they had to look for ways to earn.

“Panan-aw lang man ang nawala namo. Kumpleto paman ang among mga tiil ug kamot. So kinahanglan gyud mi motrabaho kay naa may ubang mga panginahanglanon sa kinabuhi gawas sa pagkaon (We only lost our eyesight. Our hands and our legs are still complete so we need to work because we have other needs in life other than foods,)” 27-year-old Jonathan said.

“Mas maayo gyud nga nay panginabuhian kay naa kay makuhaan sa adlaw-adlaw nga panginahanglanon sama sa bayronon sa kuryente, tubig, mga gamit sa balay (It is better to have work or any livelihood so that we can have source for our daily needs like for electric bill, water and other needs in the house,)” Alex said.

He wanted to do home service but no one wants their service because of fear of the virus.

“It would have been great to do home service but they were afraid since many were being infected by Covid-19,” Alex added.

Alex and Leonica live with their senior citizen mother. They have an eight-month old baby.

Their cousins, who live a kilometer away, have to visit them three times a day to feed their baby.

Leonica, despite her physical disability, prepares and cooks their meals.

For six months of being jobless, they have to ask for their neighbors to give them a job just to continue having an income.

Back to previous work

Jonathan lost his eyesight when he was 15 years old because of getting overworked.

He was a Chavacano from Zamboanga City. At the age of six, his mother left him and his two siblings to her mother’s employer.

That was when he learned to remove coconuts husks. It was his job to sustain his daily needs like food. He was not able to go to school.

“Pasmo mani akoa. Magtrabaho ko sa adlawan, mamunot og lubi, pagka gabii, mag-sikad ko. Naghinay-hinay ra og kawala akong panan-aw (I got blind because I was overworked. During day time, I work as coconut husk remover, then in the evening, I have to drive trisikad,)” Jonathan said.

He is the second child and has to work for his own, like his other siblings, because they were maltreated by the person to whom they were left by their parents.

He was not able to see his father because he was still a baby when he left them and went back to his real family.

“Gibiyaan pud mi niya sa iyang amo wala nako kabalo asa na siya. Nagbulag bulag nami magsoon, iyahay pangitag paagi nga mabuhi (My mother left us to her employer and I do not know where she is now. My siblings and I were separated, looking for ways to live), Jonathan shared.

His eyesight, he said, slowly deteriorated until he was completely blind when he was 15 years old.

Because he could not see the things around him anymore, he stopped working in the farm as a coconut husk remover.

“Nabag-ohan ko kay dose ka tuig ko katapusan nakapamunot, makakita pa ko ato. Karon, kabalo paman gihapon ko pero hinay-hinay kay dili naman makakita (It felt strange because it was 12 years ago when I last did this, I could still see that time. I still know how to do it but have to do it slowly because I cannot anymore see what I am doing.)” Jonathan said.

Jonathan and Jury, who live in the same boarding house, had to help each other.

They are paid PHP250 in every one thousand pieces of coconut they peeled off. For the two who has a disability in eyesight, they would spend two days doing it.

The amount they would earn in two days is far from their income when they were doing the massage before the pandemic.

Like Jonathan, Jury also does not have a family. The only family he considers is Jonathan, who became his friend more than a year ago.

Powerless, voiceless

Alex said the income they earned as coconut husk removers is better than doing nothing.

His wife, Leonica, said they tried calling a radio program sponsored by the LGU to ask if they could be given food assistance but they only got promises and were told to do massage home service.

When the city was placed under enhanced community quarantine in March, Alex said they received rice from the local government unit (LGU) but when the city was placed under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from modified general community quarantine in Sept. 1, they have not yet received any food assistance.

“Sige raman sila (LGU) og saad-saad. Wala man gihapoy aksiyon. Wala man puy magpa-masahe kay mahadlok sa COVID (19). So tipid-tipid lang gyud. Maglugaw lang sa pamahaw ug sa paniudto, sa panihapon na mokaon og insakto (They kept making promises. There was no action. No one requested us for massage home service because they are afraid of Covid. To make our rice last, we cooked porridge for breakfast and lunch then we will eat proper meal in the evening),” Alex said.

In as much as Alex wanted to look for another job, he could not move easily because he could not find someone to guide him.

Like Jonathan and Jury, Alex would usually ask children in the neighborhood to guide them when they wanted to go out.

Those who are 21 years old and younger are not allowed to go out during MECQ.

Alex said he felt that a group of differently-abled persons like them are the least priority of the government.

“Wala man gud mi power, wala mi tingog nga makaadto gyud sa atong mga opisyal sa gobyerno para mangayo. Dili parehas sa uban nga grupo nga makasulat sila, makaduol dayun sila. Mao tingale nga kalimtan rami nila, ulahi mi permi (We are powerless, we are voiceless. We cannot go directly to the government officials to ask. Unlike other groups that they can write, they can approach. Maybe that is the reason they forget us, we are always the last,)” Alex said.

Good Samaritans to the rescue

It was a good thing, Alex said, when a group of private individuals called Dalangpanan saw them and extended help to them.

Dalangpanan (refuge in English) is a group of private individuals who pooled their resources to extend help to the group of Alex and Jonathan.

“Daku kaayo og gikatabang nila sa amoa kay kung wala pa sila, mas grabe ang kalisod nga among nasinati karon (They are big help to us. If not for them, life would be harder,)” Alex said.

Engineer Teod Gayo, founder of Dalangpanan, said he founded the group in April with the purpose of soliciting from friends who have extra resources to be shared with those who are in need during the pandemic.

He said they decided to organize because at that time, assistance from the government arrived very late.

“We discovered this group of blind people here in Ditucalan and our partners in mission decided to focus our help to them. We saw the need to establish the bayanihan system during this time,” Gayo said.

Donors are coming from overseas and others from business partners and clients.

“Before the pandemic, these blind people did not ask the government for help. They worked very hard. They did not depend for help from other people. But we saw them worked hard during the pandemic,” Gayo said.

“Our group, composed of fortunate individuals, wanted to connect and help the least, the lost and the last persons the government extended their help,” he said. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Blind masseurs in Iligan City find alternative livelihood." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1116008 (accessed September 20, 2020 at 10:22PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Blind masseurs in Iligan City find alternative livelihood." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1116008 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

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maurasworld · 5 years

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Money Talk

Hello lovely ladies whom I feel I have under delivered to for the month of January. I feel you all here warmly and I know I add the stress, not you.

I am reflecting today on a new awakening for me, this human, on the planet for 54 years. I account for the time as if there was a limit on how we learn and by when we learn it, yes, in artificial judgment, but I am working through that by writing it out for you…and as always, me.

The topic is money.

I have a long history of making money mean a ton about my awesomeness. If you’ve read already in my book, it, early on made me feel powerful and dominant. I even earlier learned how to work for it, raise it, ask for it for goods and services and had very little wrapped around it.

I won’t go into an admission spiral to unpack it all here but know that I have been turning the Rubik’s Cube daily/hourly since I spent my last $ from my pension, this Fall. I know I am meant to have money. I spend it on terrific things. I see it in my deep space mind, in abundance. My bank account username is Return2fancy. If you say it, it will come.

For me, the universe brings it’s teachers and words right to my ear… if I listen. If I ask. If I drop knowing things.

So, here I am, repeating old patterns with money as a new person. Seven years ago I was learning the rules of having currency in my hands – I did not have money but I had built trust and had skills that could be traded or leveraged for security. This is when Avery and I moved out and lived with my dear friend, Kim. I couldn’t pay her, but we traded our love for each other, and shared her home. We joined her family and gave to her in many ways. Our family mantra became, “Leave the place that you are, better than when you came.” This simple twist of thought about money saved me. I credit my friend, Robin, who listened to me, and my story about life, then offered his truth to me. “You have so much currency that isn’t money to share.”

Shortly there after, I dove head first into the nonprofit world where another relationship to money took hold. I flourished in it. Road the wave of agreements with many a bed or floor space for my cot as we, the charity embarked on our tour across the U.S. We were the band and people said yes, come play with me. With ease I took these opportunities.

The hard stop came with the cancer. Thank you very much. I just realized that I am using that marker, like I used having children as the, “life before and life after” consideration. No worries, there’s not a ton of drama there, just a good denotation of when life turned. So cancer had me receiving in a hard core way with my gofundme. It was delicious. It was so necessary as you may have also read already. So life giving in the “oh my goodness, where is food coming from today” worry from just months before to “oh my I have plenty, please eat.”

Then miraculously I found my $39K pension and lived another year with ease. Until November.

Do you ever feel like Moses raising the seas with your hands? I know he parted them, but I see in my mind’s eye, this rising swell of water by my very own power in the center of dry land. Like it’s some Herculean effort asked of me to find the money for life.

In fact, it kind of is, but what’s Herculean is my own effort to listento “What’s next.”

Behind the scenes as you know, I have been writing this monster curriculum, which accounts for January in reality… like so hard core. I am only half way through the task but it keeps my butt planted for days on end. Morning, noon and night. I can show you more to prove that I have been working, but I know you know.

This item has long been the game plan for growth and posterity for the charity. And I have trusted the process, but what has been happening is in the multitudes. Five schools have bought two different versions of it, none of which have been bought at the full price. I signed contracts, submitted invoices to LAUSD, had conversations about getting a prepayment, all during November, December and January. NOTHING came, until two weeks ago. I was walking, it felt, on skeleton heads in the sea of my own mess. It’s been daunting.

Two weeks ago, I did a deep dive into talking to my dad… but wait, about three weeks ago, I had my lovely psychic read and she swears – I’m fine and money is there. So with conviction of that but living in the reality of what simply wasn’t real in my bank account, I screamed in conversation with my dad (he’s been pretty masterful in making things miracle-like work, so I was looking for his miracle.) During my screaming with him, I’m imploring, “Come on dad, what do I do? What’s the next move? Where’s all the money?” and he said, “I don’t know, kid. It’s on you.”

Talk about wanting to raise the sea… I was FRUSTRATED to be sure that there wasn’t some saving grace answer from him. Just, “mmmm,” not a great answer, I thought to myself, because that means I have to keep going! By the way, that currency I had before, it’s pretty much gone everywhere. I have leveraged it out, I feel. And I also think somewhere along the line I behaved as though that was the only currency, like I was never going to get any real money over here. That’s what was truly in my brain. Like, it was and or is, going to crash. Brick wall. Everything falls. No wonder woman in sight.

GREEEAAATTTT.

Then my sister, Cate, sends me a podcast of the woman who started a nonprofit for felons, called DEFY. It’s a great listen, I cry. See myself in a self-starter, entrepreneur vanguard, get filled back up with my own juice and start to see, that like her, my job for this nonprofit is now to fundraise.

Here’s the subtle catch and place of deep listening, that maybe is screechingly loud to you… I sold my curriculum in for less than it takes to teach it and I was willingly going to try to operate in the world of the universe providing the gap. I was willingly complicit in the less than mind of my own doing.

But I have another voice that I have been given, it’s from the sweet and highly successful nonprofit runner, Diane Luby Lane, the one I am modeling my work after, and in the past she has said, “We turn no school down when they can’t pay, because we are underwritten.”

HUZZAH. I can finally fucking hear those words and know what they mean for ME!

I HAVE A GAP! That is all. Not, “I am bad and can’t earn money.” Guilt, weight, woe.

The Defy lady, Catherine Hote, had a game plan, she wrote to all her idols and asked for time. She man handled the task and made it her own.

This is mine to do!

My whole brain is listening and popping now with insights. The grocking of new thought. The reality that this is THE next. This is what’s next. This is what is needed now of me… to grow all the things.

I handed it back to my sister and said, “Imagine that Catherine Hote is standing next to me and she says to you, ‘Do you support your sister’s nonprofit?’” (knowing that she doesn’t directly support it, testing the waters of an inside thought that this is where I need to start.) Friends and family are supposed to make up 30% of a nonprofit’s income. I know this but it’s never been the case. Not one of my family members does. When I extrapolate that to Patreon, only my married into the family members support my efforts. WHAT THE ACTUAL F?

I have been passive in my attempts. I have been cavalier and sort of even dismissive about who joins in the fray. OH MY GAWD, and it doesn’t work!

My brain came into play again. This time, it gave me an idea. I used it on my sister just to test it. She raises money for a charity in Indianapolis, for kids who have lost parents or loved ones - since she was one, too.

Here’s how it went, I said, “Cate, you are a person, let’s imagine, with lots of money. I’m a person who is going to ask you for money for my cause. I have no idea how much you have. And your words to me are, ‘how much do you need?’ So ask me that.” She says, “how much do you need?” I say, “I want all the money, but with you, I’d like you to close your eyes and imagine an amount that you are comfortable giving.” She said, “okay, I imagined it.” I said, “I want double that.” She said, “okay.”

I said, “What do you mean? What did you feel when I said, I want double that?” She said, “I didn’t feel anything. I just agreed.” My mind was blown, because this was my assumption. She agreed to give, hypothetically, double what she was going to give. NOT as it turns out, what she was comfortable giving, but what was asked of her.

MIND BLOWN.

Now, I know money is weird for everyone and this may not play this way each time, but wow.

So for now, I am on a path to mind the gap! Ask, ask, ask and be persistent in my doing. Just like writing this curriculum. It takes butt in seat work. And that is why my dad could not help. There is no miracle right now about this… and yes, I am sure there are miracles lining up, but for me, the path was in the work, not in the prayer and the “I have no idea” faith mode which I can sometimes sit in which only me and my dad or God or spirit or other modality knows the answers how to navigate.

Boom!

Here’s to getting my family over here on Patreon and signed up for monthly contributions to the charity!

Wish me luck!!

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headlines-twentyfour · 5 years

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Industrialist Mukesh Ambani is keen on the e-governance space and has set up a subsidiary company in Estonia to get a grip on the solutions, government officials of the Northwestern European nation have said.Ambani has formed a subsidiary with the Estonian government's former chief information officer Taavi Kotka.The joint venture will be looking for solutions in the e-governance space, Viljar Lubi, vice-minister for economic affairs and communications of Estonia, which is a European Union member, told a group of visiting journalists recently.He, however, did not elaborate on the exact scope of the partnership, saying government only plays the role of a facilitator.A Reliance Industries spokesperson refused to share details of the project or plan.Multiple officials in Estonia, which is among the most digitised countries in the world, maintained that the role of private companies has been crucial in developing the digital infrastructure used by all most all of its citizens.The country claims of 99 per cent of digital penetration.Ambani, the richest Indian who runs the most profitable domestic company Reliance Industries, took an e-residency of the European nation in May this year, the officials said.An e-residency helps a foreigner access the EU opportunity by helping him/her form a company, among other benefits."We've one of the founders of e-residency programmes, Kotka, who is currently working together with Reliance and Mukesh Ambani to digitalise India in terms of accessing digital identity."That is why Ambani became an e-resident recently," a spokesperson for Estonia's e-residency programme said.An email sent to Reliance Industries spokesperson on this aspect was also not answered.Asked if Ambani has visited Estonia, Lubi declined to comment, but named other Indian industrialists like Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as among those who have visited their country to have a closer look at the work on digitisation.Lubi said while digitisation has helped Estonia to get connected its scattered and very low population basethe country with a large land mass is home to only 1.4 million citizens -- it can help India as well because it has a large population to be reached out to.There are just about 2,000 Indians who have opted to become e-residents of Estonia so far, primarily to access the business opportunity presented by the European Union.Over half of them are freelancers, who unlike big companies, cannot afford to set up subsidiaries in any EU country, the official said.An e-residency enables a person to work for EU clientele and is lapped by startups looking for a footing in the EU.Lubi said Estonian journey to digitalisation started right after regaining independence in 1991 from the erstwhile USSR due to a resource crunch and later it discovered the efficacy of the same as the world went digital.At present, nearly all- - 99 per cent to be precise -- government services are digital in this country and an Estonian gets to know who all have accessed his/her records.If a citizen observes any activity on her information being accessed by an unauthorised entity, including any government department, then she can initiate legal action.The e-residency initiative was started in 2014 as a digital identity for foreigners.Apart from forming a company, an e-resident can access banking services, payment processing and also gets a digital signature.India ranks ninth among the list of countries from where e-residents are coming in, but the pace of growth is very fast, e-residency programme's managing director Kaspar Korjus said.The country is aiming to increase the number of e-residents from India to 1 million by 2025, he said, pointing out that India has over 50 million freelancers who will be keen on such an initiative.Korjus further said the increasing digitalisation and improved relations between the two governments will also help increase the number of Indians seeking e-residents in his country.By 2025, Tallinn is eyeing to have over 25 million e-residents, he said, and sounded bullish about netting so much given the rising interest in the programme.An e-resident has to pay 100 euros monthly fee along with an enrolment fee of 100 euros for a five-year membership, he said.Tallinn is looking at the programme as an initiative to build its soft power and create "friends of Estonia" who will be of help in a scenario of any threat the country, which borders Russia, he said.The e-residency programme has an annual budget of 4 million euro which it manages to net from the membership fees now, Korjus said, adding however in the future, the government may also look at the initiative as a revenue-generating opportunity as well. from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2SJN69V

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healthandfitnessuk · 6 years

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southaustinlocation · 7 years

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Tips, Wages, and Your Rights: An Interview with Tip-Pool Lawyer Bob Debes

When I first decided to write the “Served” column, I wanted to do a couple of things: I wanted to bring negative attention to places I had worked that treated their employees like shit. Another thing I hoped would happen was that some service industry people who were sick of being treated like shit would get together and help each other do something about it. I think in the year and a half that I wrote this column I maybeaccomplished my first goal. Probably not to the extent that I had hoped, but maybe restaurants like El Meson have slightly less business because of me … maybe. It became clear pretty early on that the second goal was not going to happen.

Again and again I ran into the same problems at different jobs. And when I wrote about it, it seemed that most of my fellow servers mistook my frustration with the laws and customs here as disdain for the industry in general. I don’t mean to complain and whine. When I say we are making jack-shit in wages, it’s not because I think I’m better than the job at hand, I just think that we deserve better. It seems like a lot of servers in Texas are barely scraping by, while even more restaurant owners are getting filthy rich. I know that by dropping out of school I’ve resigned myself to this type of work. I don’t mind this kind of work. Usually, I even like it. I just want waiting tables in Austin to be the best that it can be and I know it can be a hell of a lot better.

So, my advice: if you love this place and you love this industry – why not improve it? Know the few laws put in place to protect you, know your rights, and don’t let your employers take advantage of you. To educate everyone and clear up some “grey” area, I talked with Bob Debes, a lawyer in Houston, who deals primarily with tip and wage disputes. Hopefully this helps.

—

Marie (M): Give me a run-down on tip-pool law, your experience with it, and what you do on a day-to-day basis.

Bob Debes (BD): Sure. I’ve been practicing law for 24 years. Probably 90% of my practice involves handling wage and hour disputes, primarily in the restaurant and bar industries. The same law that effects people in the restaurants and bars also affects people in hotels, valets, exotic dancers and cocktail waitresses at strip clubs. It’s more expansive than you might think and it covers everyone, generally speaking, in the service industry.

So, what the law says in general is that if you’re an employer and you have annual revenues of at least 500,000 dollars a year – that’s in total sales, not profit – then you’re required to pay your employees at least $7.25 an hour for each and every hour that they’ve worked plus overtime at the rate of one and a half times the regular rate of pay for all hours worked excess of forty in a work-week. That’s the general law. Now, that’s just the minimum wage law. The way that the tip-pool stuff becomes relevant is that Congress says that even though employers are required to pay at least $7.25 an hour, that there’s an exception that exists for one category of person: tipped employees in the service industry.

What it says is that if you’re a tipped employee, that your employer can pay you as little as $2.13 an hour and take a tip-credit against their minimum wage obligations. An example is, let’s say you’re a waiter, nine times out of ten you’re going to get paid $2.13 an hour plus you’re going to get to keep part of the tips that you make. As long as you make enough in tips to cover the difference between the federal mandated $7.25 an hour and the $2.13 an hour that your employer pays you in direct wages, then it’s no problem. For instance, let’s say your total compensation for a week is $100, but you’ve worked 30 hours so you’ve only made a little over $3 an hour. The law says that the employer has the duty to make up the difference between the $3 an hour that you’ve made and the $7.25 an hour that you’re required to make.

A lot of times employers don’t even pay the $2.13 and people just work for tips. That’s a violation. Even if you made a million dollars in tips that year, if they didn’t pay you $2.13 an hour, then they owe you $7.25 an hour for each and every hour that you’ve worked for up to the past three years.

M: That’s on a week-by-week basis as opposed to a pay period?

BD: That’s on a weekly basis. Not a bi-weekly or monthly. But that is, quite honestly, a very rare situation. Most waiters are always making more than $7.25 an hour when you add the tips. Where the problem exists, though, is that there’s another provision of the Minimum Wage Act that says if the employer is going to take a tip-credit that it can only make the waiter share tips with other “tipped employees.” That’s where I come into play nine times out of ten. Someone will call me and say, “Hey, I’m a waiter at Chuy’s, I make $2.13 an hour and we’re required by our employer to share tips at the end of the night. We give, of our total sales, 3% to a tip-pool and the employer pays the hostess, the bartender, the busboy, the food runner with that money.” Again, the laws says that it’s perfectly legal for the employer to make them share their tips with other tipped employees, but what happens a lot of times is that the employer takes that money and they distribute it to not only the busboy or bartender, but they also will share the money with the kitchen staff, like the cooks, the dishwashers, the valet attendant, the door guy, the security guy, members of management. Or in a lot of instances owners will take the money and keep it for themselves because maybe they come in and bartend once a week or they’re the head cook. Well, that’s illegal because you can only share tips with other tipped employees and by definition a kitchen cook is not going to be tip eligible.

M: Is that only when the employer is using a tip-credit? What if you’re making a full minimum wage?

BD: Wow. You just raised an issue that became the subject of a huge fight in the Ninth Circuit (which is where California is), where they didn’t take a tip-credit. The employer paid $8 but they were making the employees share their tips with the busser, the bartender, blah, blah, blah, and members of the kitchen staff. The person who sued said, “well look, the kitchen staff aren’t regularly tipped employees, we shouldn’t be required to tip them out.” And the Ninth Circuit said, “Sorry, that law only applies when the employer has taken a tip-credit.” That issue, about 2 years ago, has not gone up to the Supreme Court and will not until there’s another case that comes along that comes from another Circuit Court and there’s a split of authority between the two districts. Then the Supreme Court might take up the issue.

In the interim, the Department of Labor, after that case came out, said the Ninth Circuit got it wrong. That the tips are the employee’s, even if you don’t take a tip-credit, you can’t make them share their tips with people who aren’t tip eligible. It’s a very heated argument right now. It’s something that we’re working on as we speak, trying to get that reversed.

M: In a tip-pool situation what are positions that are always allowed to take tips?

BD: Well, it’s funny because Congress did not enumerate those positions that could automatically take tips. That would’ve made it a lot easier. They didn’t do that. They just said that a tipped employee is someone who makes at least $30 a month in tips. Those people would necessarily include people like the busboy, the bartender, hostess, and food-runner because they have interaction with the customer. Those are circumstances where a customer could say “Hey, busboy, thanks so much for bringing me those constant refills of tea, I really appreciate it, I want to give you an extra $3 and don’t give this to the waiter because this is really something you did.” Or a bartender who makes some really good drinks so even though you’re sitting at the table and not at the bar, it would be customary for a bartender to get a tip for his or her good service.

M: Are there any particular job titles that prohibit a certain person from getting tips?

BD: Well, 100% without a doubt there’s the owner of the company. He or she cannot share in the tips. No question about that. That’s actually spelled out in the law. What it says is that the employer or the employer’s agent, who is someone acting on or for the benefit of the employer, cannot share in the tips. So the employer clearly can’t, but also people like a general manager who shares the responsibility or has the authority to make policy at the restaurant or is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the restaurant, they can’t share in the tips. Those two people, without a dispute, can’t be in a tip-pool.

Where it gets a little bit grey, for example, is I have a big class-action against Luby’s. We had about 1,100 waiters in the case. The waiters bus the tables themselves and put the dishes in a return area where a person with a title called “service attendant,” takes the dishes and gives them a preliminary scrub down and puts them on a conveyer belt to the dishwasher. So, the title “service attendant,” Luby’s argued, was a busboy because they did duties that were consistent of that of a busboy. Our position was that they were really a kitchen employee because their duties really entailed working in the kitchen doing traditional dishwashing duties. It’s very difficult to look categorically at a job title and say unequivocally that they can or cannot participate in a tip-pool. We really have to look at the duties of the position and what it is exactly that they are doing. Another example is an expeditor or expo. Generally his or her duty is to stay just outside of the kitchen, but not in the restaurant where the patrons sit, and they stand there and they group the plates (coming out of the kitchen) by table order and wipe down plates and garnish them or whatever, but they are really just “traying” the food. The food-runner takes the food or the waiter does. So the expo is generally speaking not a tip eligible employee, but sometimes expos at some restaurants run the food to the table, which is a duty that a waiter would normally do and therefore they would be tip eligible.

M: So it really depends on the actual job…

BD: Exactly.

M: If there is a manager or owner that “suggests” that they get tipped out, but doesn’t “require” it, how does that fit under the law?

BD: That gets into whether or not the tip-sharing arrangement is voluntary or not. You can hypothetically have a situation where you have an employee that is making less than the full minimum wage ($2.13 an hour) and they make really good money one night and they say, to the owner, “you helped me out, I’m going to give you $50.” There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t implicate the employer at all because it’s totally a voluntary tip out in recognition of the good service that was provided by somebody else. I’ll be honest with you: in almost 24 years of practice, that has happened less than a handful of times and the reason is because no one really wants to give away their money, especially if they’re getting paid $2.13 an hour. You are working for your tips. So it’s not really credible that there’s not some string attached to it.

Another example is, I’m involved in a case right now against a strip club and I had a big one in Austin about a year ago, that was against two strip clubs in Austin: these strip clubs suggest in all of the policies, procedures, and things, that tipping out the managers is totally discretionary and voluntary on the part of the stripper – you’re not required to. However it is suggested that if you do tip them out, you do between $10 and $25 a night. Well, every person that I talked to says that “No, it’s not voluntary, you do it.” Because, if you don’t, then the manager won’t help you with disputes with a customer on a tab or something. A lot of them won’t sign the strippers out when they leave until they get tipped and the strippers have to get a signature in order to leave the club. We see a lot of this in restaurants where it’s suggested, not mandatory but suggested, that you do these things. The employee always says that if you don’t then the manager will send you home early or assign you to a section that only has four tops instead of eight tops. So, it’s very rare when we see a true “voluntary” tip-share.

M: Since I’ve lived in Austin I’ve had several violations as a tipped employee, what is the best way to deal with these things?

BD: Short of contacting a lawyer or something?

M: I know that at the job I just quit because the general manager basically “suggested” that we tip him and then the shift leads felt obligated to tip him because they wanted him to help them. So, I didn’t want to be passive aggressive about it and he was new, so I confronted him and talked to him personally. That definitely wasn’t the best way to go about it. I’m just wondering for things like that.

BD: You know, it’s hard because it’s not one of those things that is one-size-fits-all. It’s all going to be dependent on the personalities involved. I like to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that the reason that these illegal tip-pools exist, in the first place, is because the person who owns or runs the restaurant, that’s what they did when they were a waiter or waitress or growing up in the service industry. So when they decided to purchase or manage a restaurant of their own they just took those policies and implemented them.

I like to think that people are just making an honest mistake because it is a very technical law. You can make your employees share tips with certain people and not others. For the people who don’t take the time to look, they can step into a snake pit.

About a month ago I notified an employer on a Thursday and that Friday they messengered a check to my client to pay for everything because they said, “we’ve made an honest mistake.” I think it was an honest mistake, or they just wanted to pay him off before it became public or before he got other people to do the same thing. Regardless, it was paid very quickly. But there are some owners who will admit to me that “yes, I’m the owner, yes I was the chef, and yes, I made everybody tip me out.” And I’ll tell them what’s wrong with it and they’ll think “Congress is crazy if they think something is wrong with it” and they’ll make me go down and try a lawsuit. And it’s crazy. It just depends on the personalities of the boss.

Most of the time I would say that before you talk to the general manager about it, collect your evidence. Get what you need to prove that the violation exists. Because once you approach the GM or owner about it, it’s funny how when we ask for that same evidence once the lawsuit’s been filed, it no longer exists. I think that it’s not a bad idea to talk to them about it, but I would always recommend that you get the evidence first. You may be gone and they may destroy the evidence.

M: Specifically what kinds of things would you need as evidence?

BD: It’s their burden to prove that they paid you at least $2.13 an hour and that they complied with the wage laws by making you share tips with only tip-eligible people. So, if you know that they are making you share tips with the busboy or dishwasher because there is a tip distribution report that’s created by the manager or there’s an envelope that he or she puts the money into for the dishwasher and it has “dishwasher” on it. Take a picture of the envelope, take a picture of the spreadsheet. If the tips are distributed to the dishwasher on his or her check, see if you can get a copy of the check and take a picture of it. If they’re so innocent to put it in writing that you have to share tips with the kitchen staff, then get a picture of that policy (i.e.: “tips for cooks” on a tip jar). Anything that you can get your hands on that shows where the tips are going.

M: Besides tip violations, what other violations are common in the service industry?

BD: There’s the area of deductions. It’s very common in restaurants and bars that the employer says, “OK, we have a mandatory uniform here you have to wear black pants, black non-slip shoes, and a logoed shirt.” And that’s perfectly fine, there’s nothing wrong with them making you have a uniform, but they can’t make you buy the uniform from them. If they’re going to make you wear a logoed shirt and make you pay for it that’s a violation of the law. If the shirt doesn’t have to have a monogram or a logo and you can go to Target or Marshalls or wherever to buy it, there’s no violation. They can make you buy your uniform, from a third party that they have a relationship with. These are pieces of clothing that you could, if you chose, wear out – outside of the office so to speak. But a Chuy’s or TGIFriday’s shirt logoed polo shirt, you can’t.

M: Well, I’ve had that problem several places as well, but it’s good to know.

BD: It’s really common – it happens from big chain restaurants down to the mom n’ pops. It’s just a very common problem. But, I think it’s one of the few times in my life really that I get to pound my chest about something. I think there’s been enough public awareness about it that restaurants are really starting to comply.

Bob Debes can be reached at 713.623.0900 or [email protected]

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