May Day was yesterday and I spent the day covering an action against a fancy sushi restaurant, Fat Salmon (best sushi in the city, 2012). A group of workers allege that the 
owner has been stealing portions of their tips, among other complaints. But I was unable to get in touch with him, despite a couple attempts.
The workers’ chief complaint is what they say is a complex system for assessing payment, which includes docking a certain percentages of a worker’s tips based on menu test scores. While it is common practice to test servers on a restaurant’s offerings, Fat Salmon workers describe an unusual four-tiered system of pay penalties: Servers who pass a test on the beverage offerings may take home 70 percent of their tips, those who pass a short menu test take home 80 percent, those who pass a long menu test receive 90 percent and, finally, a lengthy and complex full menu test is required to keep 100 percent. Yoo allegedly allows the tests to be taken only at periodic intervals, denying workers the opportunity to quickly level up. According to the workers, this means that many labor for months or years without receiving all of the money left by customers for their service. Diana says she worked full time for three months before passing all four tests and estimates she lost between $600 and $1,000.
[Jack] Yoo could not be reached for comment.
“He’s never disclosed [where the docked tip money goes], so I assume he just keeps it,” says Diana. “He won’t talk about it. You aren’t allowed to talk about your tips. When you try to bring it up he lectures you he lectures you [and claims] it is inappropriate to talk about it.”
