When you started working at your new job in Virginia, you received tips individually. Say that you are part of the wait staff at a local brewery. You were originally given certain sections and customers would leave you tips directly.
But now your employer has proposed setting up a tip pool. All of the tips are going to be combined and then divided among the wait staff. Your employer believes that this will help because any member of the wait staff can now assist any customer, in any section, but you are wondering if this change is legal.
Tip pooling is permitted
Under Virginia law, it is legal for your employer to set up a tip pool. It is important to note that employees who earn tips still have a right to them. If there are five servers on staff and you all earn $1,000 in tips collectively throughout the evening, you would each take home $200.
Employees are not always happy about this. If one employee received $400 on their tables, it would still be combined, and they would feel as if they were earning tips for other employees. But it is a legal practice.
The main way that it runs afoul of the law is when an employer or business owner decides to take any percentage of the tips for themselves. Even if that person helps the wait staff during the shift, it is illegal for them to take a portion of the tips. If they do, it is a form of wage theft.
The legal side
For both employers and employees, it is very important to understand how tipping laws work in Virginia. If there is a conflict or a dispute, they also need to know what legal options they have.