Karaoke Forums

Yeah ... it really does depend on the state. Here in Massachusetts there was a lawsuit filed against a gentleman's club (i.e. titty bar) a few years back where a couple of strippers filed a suit against a club owner claiming that they were employees and were entitled to certain benefits. I don't remember in detail the basis for their claim or exactly what they were claiming for damages, but I do know that they won their case and actually ended up putting the club out of business. The lawyer who handles most of my legal issues locally was the attorney trying the case on behalf of the strippers (I always wondered if he got paid with lap dances ) so that's how I became aware of it.

One of the problems is that there are two sets of rules that employers have to play by. The federal statutes and the state statutes neither of which are mutually exclusive. Most of the things mentioned already are helpful in trying to determine employee status, but there are things that work against the employer such as if the entertainers are required to be at the club at a certain time and certain day, if the entertainer(s) fail to submit an invoice to the employer for his/her services, does the entertainer have their own business cards, stationary, and other indicia? I can't speak for other states but here in Massachusetts there is a lot of gray area.

As far as being entitled to back benefits, I think that would be at the discretion of the judge on a case by case basis as things like that usually are.

I willingly split my tips with the wait staff. The venue pays me well, and the staff makes sure my wife and I are adequately cared for. The staff fills my beer glass (max 3 times) and takes care of my wife's needs (usually water with a lemon).

Karaoke is not a normal wait job. People come and stay, and the table seldom ever turns over to another set of tippers. Most people don't tip a lot more than normal, but some do. I try to keep the staff remunerated as best I can in a small contributory way.

There's a big difference between tipping the wait staff for the work they did for you, i.e., voluntarily, and the owner coming to you at the end of the night and saying you owe the bar $X, like what's happening to the OP.

The bartenders at the bar where I worked were on a tip share system, so all tips went into a big pool and they were tipped out based on the hours they worked.

My tips were my tips.

In the OP's scenario, if my $35-40 that I averaged in tips went into the pool on a Saturday night, where the bartenders routinely made $300-400, I would walk out of there with my $175 pay plus like $230-300 in tips. That doesn't make much sense. Nor does it make sense if the KJ is making more tips than the bartenders for the KJ to owe them money. KJ tips can swing pretty widely in my experience, bartender tips were always pretty steady.

But still, bottom line, the bar owner has 0% right to tell the KJ what he does with his money. He does, however, have the right to fire them for insubordination If I was fired because I refused to give the bar my tips, I would definitely go talk to a lawyer about a contingency arrangement.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Hasn't happened to me yet and probably won't since I don't accept tips myself. The scenerio that I was putting forth has nothing to do with actual pooling of tips being the worst case scenario. The worst case is that the owner will be allowed to just keep the tips for himself.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

That would be my last show if that were the case. What I do with my tips is my decision alone!

Back in the day when I first started hosting, I took all of my tips and collected them separately from my other earnings. When I needed to I used them to buy new equipment or new tracks. Thus I was doing what most good business men do, I was reinvesting in my business. Sometimes tips added up to anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of my gross earnings.