I live in Florida where the minimum wage is $12/hour which is what I earn. I work in a small cafeteria-style restaurant (I have been working here 6 months) in which only 4 people work at including me.

The owner doesn’t work here at all and just handles shipping and inventory. I’ve learned recently that only 2 of us receive some tip money (2 workers that have both been here over a year) and my other coworker and I don’t receive any tip money at all. The rest the owner keeps for himself. From the limited research I’ve done, this is illegal. But I don’t want to take any action without knowing my stuff.

Half of the workers are non-English speakers and 3 of them are recent immigrants except for me, I was born in the U.S. I feel like he takes advantage of that and maybe thinks we’ll never find out and don’t know it’s illegal. And apparently the other 2 workers only get very little of the tip money because they confronted the owner about it. Otherwise he would have kept keeping all of the tips. My coworker who handles the register closing is trained to put all tip jar money into the register.

When I got hired, he said it would take a few months for me to start receiving tip money. So he’s admitted that he won’t give me any tips at all. But at the time, I didn’t know this was (maybe) illegal. I don’t know what to do and I’m scared he’ll fire me if I confront him.

Edit: Please let me know if this is the right subreddit. Or please let me know which one is the right subreddit. Thank you!