COLUMBIA, S.C. — The U.S. Department of Labor said it’s been investigating restaurants around the state for the way they distributed tip money to employees. More than 100 were investigated, including one in the South Carolina Midlands. The government says some workers didn’t get the wages they were promised.
“In South Carolina, it is an all too common thing, Just in 2023 alone, we conducted about 108 investigations involving restaurants, resulting in about 1.6 million dollars in back wages due to 600 workers,” Jose Garcia with the South Carolina office of the Department of Labor said.
One of the most recent cases he investigated was in Lexington with Krafty Draft Brew Pub. According to the department, the restaurant owes more than 125 thousand dollars in back wages to 23 workers.
“So broadly speaking the process is pretty straightforward. Sometimes we either make a visit to an establishment either a directed initiative or perhaps a complaint that reaches our attention,” Garcia said.
Garcia said those are the steps taken if a restaurant violates laws or guidelines, like not paying servers the minimum wage of $2.13 an hour in addition to tips. He said in some cases, businesses may be paying all employees with tip money, which is not what’s supposed to happen by law.
“Sometimes they are not recording their hours correctly when it comes to the tips or the tips belong to. Sometimes employers share those tips with individuals that may not participate in receiving tips,” he said.
Is there something consumers can do to help? Does the method of paying the tip matter?
“Tipping cash so I know the server gets the money,” Chuck Grimsley said.
“Usually card,” Shane Weatherford said.
Garcia said the method does not matter.
“Ultimately the ownership of those tips, again the regulation indicates that it’s the employees if an investigation happens like this and the back wages are found due. The main goal is to make sure the employer gets those back wages to the employees,” Garcia said.
News19 attempted to contact the owner of Krafty Draft for a response on Friday but did not get a response.
If you are a server looking to receive maldistributed tips, the Department of Labor has resources for how to potentially retrieve them.