The City of Emeryville, California requires hospitality employers to distribute to employees the full amount of any service charge collected from customers for the employee’s service.
- Hospitality workers include “in-house” employees that work at least two (2) hours per week for a hospitality employer. Service charges may be distributed proportionally to all workers in the chain-of-service.
- Hospitality employers includes businesses operating a hotel, restaurant or banquet facility within City limits.
- Service charges include, but are not limited to, items on receipts labeled as “service charge,” “delivery charge” or “porterage charge.”
Enforcement
- The law prohibits retaliation against any person seeking to exercise their rights under the law. An employee may file a civil lawsuit against his or her employer for any violation of the law.
- Employees may also file a complaint with the City. The poster provides City contact information.
- The fine for failure to post is $500.00.
Notice & Recordkeeping
- Hospitality employers must give written notice to all new employees at the time of hire of their rights and must also post the Service Charge Poster prominently in work areas that can be seen by all employees.
- The Poster must be posted in all languages spoken by 10% or more of the employees. The Emeryville Service Charge poster includes notices in English, Spanish, Chinese and Farsi.
- A hospitality employer must also disclose in writing its plan for the distribution of service charges and must report the amount of service charges collected and distributed to each hospitality worker every payroll period.