Imagine being in a tough spot financially, and your friends offer you a job at their restaurant. If you noticed that your friends, who are now your bosses, were doing some illegal things at their business, would you report them, talk to them about it, or stay out of it since they did you a favor?

In this story, one restaurant employee is in this exact situation. He tried talking to the owner about the problems, but the owner didn’t take the issues seriously. Now, he’s conflicted about whether or not it’s right to report the owners or if it’s better to mind his own business.

It’s hard to mind your own business though when the owners aren’t giving you your tips and aren’t paying you overtime!

He’s really feeling guilty and conflicted. Let’s see if the answer is clearer than he thinks.

AITAH for reporting my long time friend’s restaurant for violating the labor laws and stealing overtime and tips.

I want to know if I am a jerk for reporting my friends’ restaurant for clearly violating labor laws.

I work in a Restaurant in Central California. I’ve known the owners of the restaurant for many years and their family has become good and trusted friends of mine.

When they opened their restaurant a year ago, they offered me a spot and I joined them.

OP knows the law really well.

But, I spent a long time preparing documents for a law office, so I’m very familiar with the law.

It didn’t take me very long before I realized that they were breaking the law in many ways.

On top of not making sure all employees had their updated food handlers license, these employers never compensated me or any of my colleagues for overtime pay.

They really are breaking the law.

Last year around Christmas time, I worked a 14 hour day. In California, its regular pay up to 8 hours, time and a half for 4 more hours and then anything over 12 hours is premium or double time.

We did not get our overtime or compensation for gas when we used our own car for deliveries, do you have any idea how expensive it is for gas in California?

Its also come to my attention that the current supervisor is getting a cut from the pooled tips.

In addition, this supervisor does a lot more work than anyone else but is compensated at minimum wage like the rest of us and is allowed to take a cut of the tips that rightfully belong to the employees.

He even knows the labor code numbers!

Labor Code 351 states that an agent of the owner/employers i.e a manager or supervisor is not allowed to take tips from the pooled tips.

After I asked the manager why he was receiving a share of our tips, he said “that his boss only compensates him for minimum wage and I was told that I get tips, I wouldn’t’ be working here at all doing all this extra work for minimum wage if I didn’t get tips.”

When I told him that it was illegal for a manager to receive tips, he said “yeah it probably is, but there’s a lot of stuff around here that isn’t legal.”

He has a theory.

After I heard each of the employees and the supervisor tell me their story of the outrageous things they were being asked to do and expected to do.

I had enough.

This particular restaurant has a tendency to hire only youth. I was the oldest employee, being closer to the owners’ ages than the teenagers. So, I think they usually hired young people, because hiring older people means they wont be able to get away with the same things, because often times, youths are not well-informed about the law and what their rights are.

He noticed a very serious problem involving underage drinking.

A week ago, I had spoken privately to the Primary owner and I told him that he could easily be shut down, fined and even sued.

In addition to screwing with our wages, it came to my attention earlier that the owner was allowing and furnishing alcohol to a minor under the age of 18. In California, the legal age is 21, but this kid was 17 at the time.

If anyone else is familiar with the Dram Shop Laws, then you’ll know that it places liability on restaurants that serve alcohol for damages or injuries or accidents caused by patrons that got too drunk.

But in this case, if this young kid was drinking, it doesn’t matter how much is in his bloodstream. He’s a minor and if that intoxicated minor is involved in an accident, his fault or not. He will be tested for alcohol. They will find out where he just came from and they will establish that he became intoxicated at his job that serves alcohol, the police are going to put 2 and 2 together and that restaurant will be shut down, the owners arrested and likely fined as well as having their beer/wine license revoked and whatever injury or damage that was caused by the intoxicated, under-age kid involved, will then be placed solely on the owners of the restaurant.

The owner seriously isn’t taking the law seriously.

The Owner assures me that he has since gotten a handle of that employee and since then, I haven’t come to work and seen this person drunk since the complaint. So that’s good. But, he keeps it in reach of the kid at all times. So, who knows.

I’d like to say that he took the statement about tips seriously. He didn’t.

I already told the owner that he cant allow his supervisor collect tips that belong to employees. But low and behold tonight, he collected.

But, it was at this time that I told the owner “You cant be allowing your manager to take tips that rightfully belong to the employees. If you want your manager to be tipped, then he needs to be tipped from upper-management directly, or by patrons directly. But collecting tips that belong to the employees is a fine-able offense that can be fined multiple times if proven to be willful. So technically every single time this supervisor was tipped since the beginning of this year its 1 misdemeanor count with damages paid to each employee of up to $1000 per offense, if it can be proven willful. Its very likely that you were not aware of this law, until I tried to warn you about it last week that you, the owners are not allowed to give tips to the shift supervisor that rightfully belong to the employees, and at the end of this shift, I noticed the supervisor collected tips. That’s Labor Code 351 for reference. This isn’t a game man, I’m not playing with you on this.”

He feels guilty about ratting out his friends.

This restaurant owner could be in serious trouble now. And I can’t help but feel responsible.

These people were my close friends, I care for them deeply and the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt them or cause them to lose all of their hard work or at least to put that in jeopardy.

I haven’t made any official report, but I did file an inquiry. with some basic info implied. So, i honestly feel like a jerk for opening my mouth.

But, I’m an employee and I have a right to be paid for all of my accrued overtime, I have a right to make sure my tips are not being unfairly collected by management and I have a right to bring these things to their attention without retaliation.

He really feels like he’s the problem.

While they can’t retaliate in a legal or employment sense, they have retaliated in a friendship sense. They see it as a major betrayal.

They hired me to help me out and give me a job and I turned around and threatened to opened my mouth about them to the labor board for stealing our overtime and tips, but only if changes were not made immediately.

I am not sure how to feel, but I’m basically extorting them and I don’t feel good about it. On the one hand, I know that standing up for my fellow employees and for myself is the right and noble thing to do, but I still feel like a jerk.

I’m a jerk aren’t I? Its okay, let me have it! I gotta take responsibility. But, I don’t think standing up for my younger and less experienced colleagues is a bad thing.

This story might be a good example of why it’s a bad idea to work for friends or family, but clearly the owner is the problem not OP.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a Glassdoor review that had an unexpected impact on hiring.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person reassures him that he didn’t do anything wrong.

Here’s another vote for reporting the owners.

This person agrees that he’s not the bad guy here.

Everyone thinks he is doing the right thing.

It’s too bad when a business owner doing illegal things is successful at making employees feel guilty for calling them out on their illegal practices. That’s pretty messed up!

This restaurant deserves to pay for all of the illegal things they are doing. Helping out a friend doesn’t give the owners a free pass on not paying tips or overtime.

I think OP should forget about the friendship. These friends aren’t the kind of people that deserve to be called friends. They are making huge mistakes, and even if they didn’t know these things were illegal, they do now. They should care.

The owners clearly don’t care about their employees. They’re selfish and greedy. They’re also manipulative by making this employee feel bad for even speaking up.

If I were him, I hope what I would do would be to report them, quit and walk away from the friendship.

The law is on his side.