SUSPENDED FROM WORK FOR SPEAKING OUT?!(read here)

We will not let Management intimidate us into being silent.

We employees cannot accept personal tips,

yet automated tip prompts and T.I.P.S. boxes continue to collect money across the Unions.

The financial records for this fund are also not easily available or accessible,

including the amount of money collected, spent, and where it has been allocated. Public records requests for this information can take several months to years to process.

This needs to change.

The Wisconsin Union is a Student Union Against its Own Students.

PETITION TO THE DIRECTOR

We wrote the Director of the Union a petition letter. Read here, and contact us if you're a student worker and you'd like to sign!

If you are not a student employee, but would like to show support for our cause, considersigning your name here!

Who We Are

We are Wisconsin Union employees who are passionate about fairness at the work place. We aim to inform the general public about the T.I.P.S. system in place across Wisconsin Union stores, restaurants, and bars, as we believe that it is an unfair system meant to deceive customers into leaving tips for workers which they cannot receive.

Our Mission

We wish to unify student employees’ voices and concerns regarding the T.I.P.S. Fund and make a difference. Our primary goal is to fundamentally change the future of the T.I.P.S. Fund, either by completely abolishing it or negotiating a system that is more in line with the views of student employees at the Union. We also seek transparency of the financial records of the T.I.P.S. fund, including how much money has been collected in the last 5 years, where the money has been allocated, and future expenses from this fund, including but not limited to expenditure reports that are easily accessible for all, and regularly updated. Our mission is to give Student Workers at the Union a voice, and to increase trust and transparency between the Union, its workers, and the public.

Brief History of the T.I.P.S. Fund

The Student Employee Advisory Group (SEAG) was first created around 2008, shortly following the Rathskeller arrests of staff members regarding an embezzlement scandal. The idea that would lead to the creation of SEAG was to create a student-employee representative group that would be custodian of our customers’ voluntary donations, and use these funds towards the benefit of our student staff. Director of the Union, Mark Guthier, had cited a philosophical commitment to prevent customers from feeling the need to tip for excellent service at the Union. Legally, Wisconsin Union training modules state that all Employees of the Union are employees of the State Government, and therefore, are not allowed to collect tips from customers. Instead, if an employee is offered a tip by the customer, employees are instructed to direct it to our Donation Boxes. These collected donations are then put toward the benefit of student employees through several programs and events (as dictated here in a Wisconsin Union Procedure Policy Document) by SEAG.

This is the official policy of the Wisconsin Union and is also included here in the employee training video #24 titled "T.I.P.S.". Students who have broken this rule in the past and have been caught accepting personal tips from customers have had their employments terminated for doing so. These training modules for new employees were updated as of August 29th, 2026, to include information about the T.I.P.S. system. Previously, the official training modules included no information about the T.I.P.S. system specifically, as it was renamed to T.I.P.S. in the fall of 2025, and before this it was simply the SEAG donation fund. Upon watching through these videos, there are surveys that new employees have to complete. The wording for these surveys was also updated as of August 29th, 2026, to include questions about the T.I.P.S. fund. This link to the outdated training modules now redirects people to the new employee trainings. Every employee has to complete these training videos and surveys in order to work at the Union.

Previously, these Donation Boxes were somewhat aptly named SEAG Donation Boxes (although the exact terminology is lost to our memory). However, in Fall of 2025, these boxes and all the electronic Point-Of-Sale systems for Credit Card payments were relabeled to “T.I.P.S.”, with the acronym standing for “Thoughtful Investments in the Potential of Staff”. Previously, automated “Tip” prompts on Point-Of-Sales systems were disabled, but around the time that “T.I.P.S.” was born, automatic prompts for a “Tip” slowly began being rolled out across all of the Union Retail locations. As of August 2026, all Union Point-of-Sale systems at restaurants, coffee shops, bars, events, allow Credit Card “Tip” prompts, with the notable exception of Badger Market.

Our Efforts Thus Far

After consistent discussions among Student Staff about the deceptiveness and unfairness of the T.I.P.S. system, we decided to reach out to the Assistant Director of Human Resources at the Union, Benjamin Clark. We requested to meet with him regarding the T.I.P.S. fund to ask our questions and get clarifications.

➼ We asked whether or not student employees can tell customers that tips do not go to us, and whether or not employees can decline tips. We were told that employees should not refuse tips, but may be allowed to explain the T.I.P.S. donation system to customers and let them decide.

➼ We asked about the delegation of funds, and who gets to decide where and how much to spend the T.I.P.S. money. We were told that SEAG comes up with ideas regarding where to delegate funds, but HR personnel gets the final say on whether or not those ideas are allowed.

➼ We asked about possibly becoming members of SEAG and how someone can become a member. We were told that any student employee can apply to SEAG, and that it is a selected body of students chosen by HR from applications, not democratically chosen by student employees. SEAG meetings have frequently been underattended in recent years, with only a couple of members regularly attending meetings, and only a few members in attendance at most meetings.

➼ We asked about the renaming of the SEAG Donation Boxes to T.I.P.S. in the fall of 2025. We were told that, at some point, an employee accidentally enabled the credit card "tip" option on an electronic point-of-sales system. When management realized how much more money was able to be collected using electronic "tips", they decided to begin allowing credit card donations across the Unions. They also decided to rename the SEAG donation fund to T.I.P.S. in order to match the donation fund name to the "tip" option on the electronic point-of-sales systems, as these systems are hardcoded to call any added gratuity a "tip".

➼ Finally, we asked to release any and all financial records of the T.I.P.S. Fund, including how much has been collected where it is being spent, and how much has already been spent. We were told we could meet again to view and discuss these records, but this second meeting ended up getting cancelled last minute by Ben Clark. Eventually, we were informed that this discussion of transparency was not the "best use of time" for management.

Here are links to theDaily CardinalandCap Timesarticles on this matter.

SUSPENDED FROM WORK FOR SPEAKING OUT?

Approximately two days after the Daily Cardinal article about the T.I.P.S. fund came out, one of the two of us who interviewed with the Daily Cardinal about the T.I.P.S. fund, Saro Bhattacharya, was wrongfully accused of removing papers from a catering supervisor's desk and suspended from work indefinitely.

The Daily Cardinal article about T.I.P.S. came out on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. Two days later, on Thursday, August 27th, we witnessed what appeared to be a Public Relations response about T.I.P.S. printed, stapled, and left on most catering supervisors' desks, presumably by the Human Resources department or the Director of Catering. While he was on shift that day, Saro asked the Director of Catering if he could obtain a copy of this PR response to read. She responded that he was allowed to read it after he was finished with his work. Therefore, there was absolutely no indication that this PR response was not for the eyes of student employees. Further, the copies of this PR response were left out in the open on supervisors' desks in the catering office, where student employees are very frequently walking through and doing work.

Later that day, a few other student employees who had just completed their shifts were reading through a copy of the PR response that was on one of the catering supervisor's desks. One of these students accidentally left the catering office with the PR response still in hand without realizing it and went to the clock out station. As soon as they realized that they still had the PR response in their hand, they gave it to Saro and asked him to return it to the supervisor whom it belonged to. Saro walked back into the catering office and handed this PR response back to the supervisor. Shortly after, the Director of Catering approached Saro and asked him to step into her office and chat. It was then that Saro was accused of the "unauthorized removal" of the PR response from a supervisor's desk, and that HR would like him to clock out immediately. He was also told that he would not be able to clock back in until HR reached out to him regarding the matter. As of September 1st, 2026, Saro has heard nothing from HR, despite reaching out via email on two different occasions.

We believe that this is a case of retaliation against Saro because of the backlash the Union has received in light of the news articles about the T.I.P.S. fund. The disciplinary action of the Union against Saro may constitute retaliation against his lawful free speech, protected to him under his First Amendment Rights. Under Wis. Stat. § 230.90, retaliatory action against state employees for disclosing information protected under the First Amendment is illegal.