Deducting credit-card fees is more than just business, servers say
Posted by jfsweene September 12, 2008 17:52PM
For restaurant servers, tips are more than money. They're personal.

The amount a customer leaves is a measure not only of the dining experience, but also of the server's skills, personality and likability. It's easy to understand why waiters and waitresses are passionate about their tips. And protective.

Most servers already share their tips with busboys, hostesses and/or bartenders. Some restaurants require a "tip-out," while others make it voluntary. Many servers recognize the value of the people clearing and setting tables, running food and mixing drinks and are willing to share their gratuities.

That's not always the case when the boss announces that he'll deduct the 1.8 percent to 3.5 percent credit-card processing fee from their charged tips.

"If someone told me that, I wouldn't even take the job," said Mindy Fluharty. "'We're taking some of your money.' Why? It's not yours to take."

Fluharty of Cleveland has been waiting tables for 36 years. She works mornings at Bucci's Brick Oven in Middleburg Heights. Virtually all of her customers charge their meals. She gets the full amount of her charged tips. If she didn't, she'd move on.

"I'd say, 'Sorry, I'm out of here.' I would have to quit, because [charged tips] are all I make."

Servers are categorized as tipped employees. In Ohio, their minimum wage is $3.50 an hour, half what nontipped workers start at. (In seven states, including California, restaurant servers make the same minimum wage as other employees.) The wait staff relies on tips to lift that wage to and beyond $7 an hour.

When tips are figured in, the nation's 2.4 million servers made an average $8.93 an hour in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Ohio, they made less, $8.12 an hour, which works out to $16,900 a year.

Among other workers who receive tips, servers earn less than bartenders ($9.49 an hour), manicurists and pedicurists ($10.59), taxi drivers ($10.93), hairstylists ($12.38) and barbers ($12.43).

Restaurants deducting credit-card fees from charged tips adds to a feeling that servers are on the bottom rung, said Dave Weisman, a 12-year server from Munroe Falls,

"It's yet another one of the ways that people cheat the waiter," he said. "I think it's absolutely absurd. Restaurant owners have plenty of ways to supplement the amount of money they make."

Weisman sees the policy as a violation of the free-market system.

"If a person is being penalized for selling more, that goes against everything in our economy," he said.

Other servers, such as Darlene Muniak of Parma, are not as fired up about the practice.

Muniak has worked at Carrie Cerino's in North Royalton since 1983. The restaurant deducts 2 percent of tips left on credit cards. The policy was implemented about five years ago, after the owners had a meeting with the wait staff.

"They sat down with us and explained the whole thing with us," she said. "I didn't have any qualms with it. . . . On $10, it's 20 cents. It's not huge amounts."

Muniak estimates the policy might cost her $6 or $7 a week. It's better than Cerino's raising prices or no longer accepting plastic, she said. "We don't want to deter people. We want customers.