DOL seeks to rescind tip-pooling rule

The Trump administration today proposed rescinding an Obama-era tip-pooling rule that prevents employers from redistributing servers’ tips to back-of-house employees.

The 2011 rule prevented employers from dividing tips, giving a cut to kitchen staff and others who don’t receive tips directly. The Trump administration’s proposal would apply only to employees already making minimum wage — not “tip-credit” employees whose base pay is below minimum wage.

Under the proposal, workplaces “would have the freedom to allow sharing of tips among more employees,” DOL said in a statement, adding that it “would help decrease wage disparities between tipped and non-tipped workers.”

In a statement, National Employment Law Project Executive Director Christine Owens said change amounts to “a wholesale attack on restaurant workers and the meager federal protections they have for their pay.”

“Today the Trump Labor Department has proposed a pathway for employers to keep the tips for themselves,” she said.

A 30-day comment period will begin once the proposal is published in the Federal Register tomorrow.

Report via Politico Pro