How The Boss May Be Quietly Pocketing Your Server's Tips
02/16/2015 21:48
Laurie Zabawa says she'd been working at a Hilton Garden Inn in Bozeman, Montana, for seven years when the owners outsourced the management of the hotel in 2012. For Zabawa, the hotel's banquet manager, this meant that any parties that took place in the hotel would now be overseen by an outside firm, an Ohio-based company called Gateway Hospitality Group.
The banquet workers whom Zabawa oversaw weren't being let go, so the service-industry lifer says she took the change in stride -- that is, until Gateway explained the new policy on gratuities.
By tradition, when clients of the hotel ran up banquet tabs, they'd be subject to an automatic gratuity of 18 to 20 percent. That money was then distributed among the waiters, bartenders and other food workers who handled the event, according to Zabawa. For workers earning close to minimum wage, these tips could equal half their base pay, and they were essential to making a living.
But according to Zabawa and a lawsuit she's filed in Montana state court, after Gateway took over, the automatic gratuity was renamed a "service" or "setup" fee, and the house stopped distributing that money to staff. Zabawa claims that workers were told to sign papers accepting a new flat wage that didn't include gratuities. Most workers were given a nominal raise of about $1 per hour, but it didn't come close to making up for the lost tips, she says.
As banquet manager, Zabawa says she was tasked with implementing the new policy.
"It was awful," Zabawa, 50, told The Huffington Post. "Just imagine working there with those people for years. They were my family. It was horrible to go through, and I had no options."
Zabawa claims she was pressured to quit her job after telling management she believed the new policy violated Montana wage laws. She is suing over what she deems wrongful termination, and she's asked the court to declare the hotel's use of service fees illegal.
Hilton and the hotel's operator, Bozeman Lodging Investors, did not respond to requests for comment about Zabawa's allegations. Bob Voelker, Gateway's CEO and a Hilton veteran, told HuffPost he would not comment on ongoing litigation. According to the company's website, Gateway has contracts with at least 17 Hilton-brand properties in four states.
