Employers Will No Longer Be Able to Take a Cut of Your Tips in Ontario

A bill that will ban employers from taking part of their employees' tips in Ontario is likely set to become law before Christmas.

The provincial bill, which has been introduced on four different occasions over the past five years, is looking to make it illegal for employers to require their workers to hand over a portion of their tips, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

As of right now, employees in Ontario—from tattoo artists to servers—can have a percentage of their tips seized by their boss to either be pooled and divided amongst staff (you probably know it as "team gratuity"), or to help pay for other expenses such as broken dishes and credit card transaction fees.

Since cash tips aren't usually recorded, most employees can hang onto them with little suspicion, but digital transactions—such as with debit or credit—are the most heavily hit. These transactions often go directly to the employer's bank account, and the tips are only levied out after the fact.

The damage from this is compounded by the fact that server's wage in Ontario is only $9.80 [$7.33 USD]—a whole $1.45 [$1.08 USD] per hour less than the regular minimum wage of $11.25 [$8.41]. Then there's the competitiveness between employees that this creates, especially when there are both tipped and non-tipped employees working at that same business.

The bill was first introduced in 2010 by former NDP MPP Michael Prue, and at the time, it only consisted of a single line: "An employer shall not take any portion of an employee's tips or other gratuities."

The bill does cause problems for certain business, however. In the case of an indie coffee shop, for example—the owner of that place probably relies on the tips to help pay themselves, despite not necessarily being the one tipped all the time. Other places, such as unionized business, might have the tipping agreement inked firmly into their contract.

The bill was last seen before Queen's Park shut it down for the 2014 provincial election, and although Prue is no longer an elected official, his successor, Liberal MPP Arthur Potts, brought the bill back to life.

There is still a chance the bill might be heavily revised, as it's part of a large programming motion proposed by Queen's Park, which means the entirety of the legislation it's contained in will be under heavy scrutiny before being passed.

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