The Trump administration wants to let bosses keep their workers’ tips

[Confounding]

Thoughts?

The Trump administration wants to let bosses keep their workers’ tips

The Trump administration has kept its promise to let companies do business with less government oversight. From the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration has rolled back rules on oil companies, banks, and health insurance companies.

Trump’s efforts could soon reach your neighborhood restaurant, barbershop, and nail salon. One of the administration’s major deregulation efforts is currently underway at the Department of Labor — and if implemented, it could potentially hurt millions of American workers who get tips as part of their jobs.

The agency is considering a new rule that would give employers unprecedented control over what to do with a worker’s gratuities. The rule, which the agency proposed in December, would repeal an Obama-era regulation that made official what had been the common view for decades: that tips are the sole property of the workers who earn them. It would essentially allow employers to use their workers’ tips for tip-pooling arrangements, provided their workers make the minimum wage.

If the new rule is finalized, it would be a boon to the restaurant industry, which has been fighting for years to control how servers’ tips are distributed.

“This is a major departure from how the DOL has always interpreted the law,” said Judith Conti, the federal advocacy coordinator for the National Employment Law Project. “It sets policy for all tipped workers: parking attendants, car washers, airport valets, taxi drivers, hotel bellhops.”

 

[mikegriffith1]

I thoroughly disagree with the Trump administration on this. What a server or a barber does with their tips is their business, regardless of whether or not they make the minimum wage.

 

[DGS49]

This is a stupid and ignorant analysis.

Servers and (usually) bus-people traditionally get tips, and are NOT subject to the standard minimum wage laws. Their tips are deemed to "guarantee" that they will earn at least the MW, and survey after survey prove that this is true, in spades. In fact, when servers are asked whether they want to forego tips and instead be covered by MW, they overwhelmingly say, "No, thank you." People working in the kitchen (so to speak) ARE subject to the minimum wage laws, and generally do not get any tip income.

This regulatory change applies to establishments that PAY THEIR SERVERS ACCORDING TO THE MW law, hence, they do not require the tip income in order to come up to MW. In those cases, the proposal is to allow the tips to be pooled and shared with the people working in the kitchen.

The implication that this change would allow employers to, in effect, steal tip income is an ignorant, dastardly lie. NONE of the tip money may be retained by the employer.

The Leftist view of tips is that they are a boon to the Evil Capitalist restaurant owners, who can use them to fulfill their implicit obligation to pay a "living wage." But for those who actually earn tips, they are a way of making one hell of a lot more than they could earn as a clerk at the local 7-11 - and a hell of a lot more than minimum wage.

 

[Tijn Von Ingersleben]

This is a stupid and ignorant analysis.

Servers and (usually) bus-people traditionally get tips, and are NOT subject to the standard minimum wage laws. Their tips are deemed to "guarantee" that they will earn at least the MW, and survey after survey prove that this is true, in spades. In fact, when servers are asked whether they want to forego tips and instead be covered by MW, they overwhelmingly say, "No, thank you." People working in the kitchen (so to speak) ARE subject to the minimum wage laws, and generally do not get any tip income.

This regulatory change applies to establishments that PAY THEIR SERVERS ACCORDING TO THE MW law, hence, they do not require the tip income in order to come up to MW. In those cases, the proposal is to allow the tips to be pooled and shared with the people working in the kitchen.

The implication that this change would allow employers to, in effect, steal tip income is an ignorant, dastardly lie. NONE of the tip money may be retained by the employer.

The Leftist view of tips is that they are a boon to the Evil Capitalist restaurant owners, who can use them to fulfill their implicit obligation to pay a "living wage." But for those who actually earn tips, they are a way of making one hell of a lot more than they could earn as a clerk at the local 7-11 - and a hell of a lot more than minimum wage.

You nailed it Colonel.

 

[Winston]

This is a stupid and ignorant analysis.

Servers and (usually) bus-people traditionally get tips, and are NOT subject to the standard minimum wage laws. Their tips are deemed to "guarantee" that they will earn at least the MW, and survey after survey prove that this is true, in spades. In fact, when servers are asked whether they want to forego tips and instead be covered by MW, they overwhelmingly say, "No, thank you." People working in the kitchen (so to speak) ARE subject to the minimum wage laws, and generally do not get any tip income.

This regulatory change applies to establishments that PAY THEIR SERVERS ACCORDING TO THE MW law, hence, they do not require the tip income in order to come up to MW. In those cases, the proposal is to allow the tips to be pooled and shared with the people working in the kitchen.

The implication that this change would allow employers to, in effect, steal tip income is an ignorant, dastardly lie. NONE of the tip money may be retained by the employer.

The Leftist view of tips is that they are a boon to the Evil Capitalist restaurant owners, who can use them to fulfill their implicit obligation to pay a "living wage." But for those who actually earn tips, they are a way of making one hell of a lot more than they could earn as a clerk at the local 7-11 - and a hell of a lot more than minimum wage.

The implication that this change would allow employers to, in effect, steal tip income is an ignorant, dastardly lie. NONE of the tip money may be retained by the employer.

Did you even bother to read the OP? Yes, the employers would be allowed to "steal" tip income. From the OP,

But the second way employers could use the tips goes even further than expanding this type of tip pooling. The rule lists examples of how else employers could use a worker’s gratuities: to renovate their restaurants, lower menu prices, or hire more workers. In other words, it allows restaurant owners to keep the tips for themselves.

That seems pretty damn clear. Do you work for the Trump administration? Why would you claim that employers being able to keep tips for themselves is an "ignorant, dastardly lie"? It is a fact, so much so that the article even mentioned that the Secretary of Labor is under investigation for attempting to hide the projected impact of that "theft" on servers.

Talk about redistribution. But as guess it is not a problem when it is going from the working poor to the business owner. I find the concept appalling, disgusting quite honestly.

But let's put some numbers on it. Outback Steakhouse. Typical busy weekend night, at least three grand an hour in sales. Fifteen percent of that is $450. Regardless, the IRS is going to peg each server with eight percent in tips which is $240 an hour. Should be 15 servers on the floor. Throw in a couple bartenders. Hell, let's round it up and even it out. 17 servers, three bartenders. So that's twenty people splitting up that three grand in business per hour. Twelve bucks an hour at the eight percent rate. Eighteen at the fifteen percent rate. The difference between the minimum wage and those hourly rates is the money that is now being offered to the owners. And honestly, walking out with only fifteen percent seldom happens to a power server with a string of regulars.

 

[BlindBoo]

Wait staff already pay enough in tip pool as it is.

 

[Confounding]

Wait staff already pay enough in tip pool as it is.

I think the tip pool also removes incentive to go above and beyond as a server. The best servers should make the most money in my opinion.

 

[mikegriffith1]

This is a stupid and ignorant analysis.

Servers and (usually) bus-people traditionally get tips, and are NOT subject to the standard minimum wage laws. Their tips are deemed to "guarantee" that they will earn at least the MW, and survey after survey prove that this is true, in spades. In fact, when servers are asked whether they want to forego tips and instead be covered by MW, they overwhelmingly say, "No, thank you." People working in the kitchen (so to speak) ARE subject to the minimum wage laws, and generally do not get any tip income.

This regulatory change applies to establishments that PAY THEIR SERVERS ACCORDING TO THE MW law, hence, they do not require the tip income in order to come up to MW. In those cases, the proposal is to allow the tips to be pooled and shared with the people working in the kitchen.

The implication that this change would allow employers to, in effect, steal tip income is an ignorant, dastardly lie. NONE of the tip money may be retained by the employer.

The Leftist view of tips is that they are a boon to the Evil Capitalist restaurant owners, who can use them to fulfill their implicit obligation to pay a "living wage." But for those who actually earn tips, they are a way of making one hell of a lot more than they could earn as a clerk at the local 7-11 - and a hell of a lot more than minimum wage.

I disagree. Why should servers have to share their tips with kitchen personnel? If owners want their kitchen personnel to make more money, then they should raise their salaries, not take the tips of servers. If kitchen personnel think they are underpaid, they are free to find another line of work, or to become a server.

The Marxist idea here is to let owners take servers' tips and use them to increase the salary of their kitchen staff.

Satellite dish and cable TV installers sometimes get tips. Imagine if their companies said, "Hey, give any tips you get to us and we'll use that money to give our customer service reps salary increases."

 

[DGS49]

"But the second way employers could use the tips goes even further than expanding this type of tip pooling. The rule lists examples of how else employers could use a worker’s gratuities: to renovate their restaurants, lower menu prices, or hire more workers. In other words, it allows restaurant owners to keep the tips for themselves."

This is why regulations are published for comment. This odious provision will surely die before the regulations are formally promulgated. Otherwise, it makes sense. And BTW, anyone applying for work in a restaurant should explore this topic and NOT WORK THERE if they find the employer's policies unfair.

 

[mikegriffith1]

This is now a dead issue. The omnibus spending bill bars employers from keeping any part of workers' tips and also allows workers to sue employers for tips taken from them in the past. I'm glad that workers' tips are protected in the bill. Not everything that businesses want is good. Some businesses are greedy and dishonest. There is no moral justification for allowing employers to grab their workers' tips.

 

[DGS49]

"The new regulations state that an employer “may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees’ tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit.”

But if employees are paid the full minimum wage, it is now legal for servers, bartenders and other tipped employees to share tips with other not-traditionally tipped employees like dishwashers and cooks."

Just as I predicted above.