Is Your Employer Properly Paying You For Service Charges?
Under Massachusetts law, service charges on customers’ bills are treated the same as tips. Unfortunately, some employers are better at collecting service fees than paying them to employees.
What Are Service Charges?
Many businesses in Massachusetts charge service fees to cover the cost of providing service to their customers. Compounding matters, service charges are usually collected automatically by the owner of a restaurant or other service establishment.
Examples of service charges include:
- A service charge for dinner at a restaurant
- A bottle service charge in a nightclub
- A room service charge in a hotel
- A luggage assistance charge in a hotel or the airport
- A delivery charge for food or other items
Under Massachusetts’ state law, service charges must be paid to employees.
Are There Times When Employers Can Keep Service Charges?
If the fee is called a service fee, it must be paid to employees. If a fee is called an administrative charge or other type of charge, it may or may not have to be paid to employees, depending on the wording included on the check or bill to the customer. Our lawyers will review your case and let you know if your employer improperly withheld charges that should have been rightfully paid to employees.
Are There Times When Employers Can Keep Service Charges?
If the fee is called a service fee, it must be paid to employees. If a fee is called an administrative charge or other type of charge, it may or may not have to be paid to employees, depending on the wording included on the check or bill to the customer. Our lawyers will review your case and let you know if your employer improperly withheld charges that should have been rightfully paid to employees.
Don’t Let Your Employer Keep Your Wages
If your employer is not paying you the service charges it collects from customers, call the attorneys at [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-3″] in Boston at [nap_phone id=”LOCAL-REGULAR-NUMBER-2″]. You may be entitled to triple the amount of unpaid wages you are owed plus interest and attorneys’ fees. We offer a confidential consultation to discuss unpaid service charge claims.
In addition to representing individual employees, our attorneys represent groups of employees in Tips Law class actions.