Tips to replace full wages for rest stop workers along PA Turnpike

Corporation Applegreen wants travelers along the Pennsylvania Turnpike to pay the burden of  wages it cut for rest stop employees.

Rest stop workers along the sprawling 360-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike recently had their wages cut and replaced with a customer tipping system to address their lost compensation.

Applegreen, a multinational corporation that operates 17 travel plazas on the Turnpike, sent a memo to employees explaining the changes to their wages at the end of July. 

“We are writing to inform you of an upcoming change to our compensation structure that will take effect on August 3, 2025. This change is being made to better align with industry standards and to provide our associates with the opportunity to earn more and be rewarded for their efforts in providing excellent service for our customers,” the memo read.

“Effective August 3, 2025 your hourly rate of pay will change from $14.00 to $11.00. Since your hire date is on or before August 3, 2025 you are guaranteed an hourly rate of $14.00. You will be paid this rate if your new hourly rate plus tips is not equal to or greater than $14.00 per hour” it went on to say. 

Employees are now eligible for cash and credit card tips, and for those hired before Aug. 3, they will be guaranteed a base pay of $14 per hour if their tips do not fully cover their pay. 

Under the new system, Applegreen will rely on tips to cover the disparity and allow employees to take home any additional amount of money incurred from tips. However, if they do not recover those wages in tips, Applegreen will step in and fill in the gap.

The company’s statement says that workers requested these changes and see it as a potential to earn more money and is extending the change to the plazas on the turnpike.

“Existing employees will continue to be paid the same but will have an opportunity to make more with tips,” an Applegreen spokesperson said in a statement. “The current trial will run for about a month. At the end of this period, depending on employee and customer feedback, we have the option of keeping the new system, tweaking it, or suspending it.”

One Applegreen employee blew the whistle on these changes. 

Abigail Lukehart has been working as a barista at a rest stop in Western Pennsylvania for the past two-and-a-half-years, and she started informing other employees and the public after these changes were underway. 

“ On July 29th, all of the workers received a paper stating that our pay was being cut from $14 an hour to $11 an hour, and that we’re now forced to participate in a tip pool where the wage cut is made up with our tips,” Lukehart told The Keystone. “Anything that exceeds that wage cut, is still used as a tip, but anything below the wage cut is going towards our wage instead of being like bonus money as it used to be.”

Lukehart started an online petition highlighting the cuts and drove to different rest stops along the Turnpike explaining to her co-workers why this is a bad idea. She believes this tip system places an unnecessary burden onto the customers. 

“[Applegreen] kind of did their best to label this as a really good thing and we’re gonna make so much more money.” Lukehart said. “But in actuality, it’s going to be really rare for us to make enough in tips to cover the wage cut and then go home with any money after that.”

Ultimately, she expects to take home less as a result of the new policy.

“It’s really just ripping us off pretty bad because we’re used to going home with maybe $20 in cash a night,” she added. “It’s also ripping the customers off because when they tap their card and they click $2 tip, they think that they’re awarding us for our good service, but, it’s just helping the company not have to pay us a livable wage.”

Samuel Jones, executive director with the Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC) Pennsylvania, can’t recall the last time a company cut their employees’ wages in order for tips to fill in the gap. 

“ From my point of view, that’s an egregious abuse of power,” Jones said. “Multinational corporations should never place the burden of paying their employees on their customers.”

ROC PA is a nonprofit organization that advocates for service industry workers across the commonwealth, and Jones believes that this is just another reason the state needs to raise the minimum wage. 

Pennsylvania hasn’t adjusted its minimum wage since 2009 when the federal government raised the minimum wage to $7.50 per hour, while tipped workers earned $2.83 per hour. 

“ I think this is just another example of why Pennsylvania needs an increase in the minimum wage for all workers, including tip workers, to at least $15 an hour,” Jones said.