As we’ve anticipated, the Florida Minimum Wage petition has met the signature threshold and is headed for the ballot in November 2020. The Florida Division of Elections has officially certified over 768,000 voter signatures (766,200 are required for 2020 petitions). The petition, which will appear on the 2020 ballot as Amendment 2, will increase the…
Read More »On Monday of this week, the Department of Labor (DOL) released yet another amended tip-pooling proposal. The latest iteration however, only applies to employers who do not take a tip credit. It will allow employers to pool tips from front-of-the-house workers and share them with back-of-the-house employees who aren’t normally tipped. This most recent change…
Read More »That seems to be the clear message being sent by a number of restaurant employees to SEIU and the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC). Bartenders and servers have joined forces to create a website, Our Industry Our Voice, through which they advocate for the preservation of the tipped wage (and the tip credit). The website…
Read More »It ain’t perfect, but it’s an acknowledgement that economic conditions – and costs of living – differ across the country depending on the region one may be working in. Representative Terri Sewell of the Alabama 7th Congressional District has proposed a federal regional minimum wage that may be gaining some traction in the democrat-controlled US…
Read More »After battling all through last year over the issue, democrat NJ Governor Phil Murphy agreed with the democratic-controlled legislature on a bill that will lead to a state minimum wage of $15 per hour as soon as 2024. Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, who has not always seen eye to eye with Murphy, finally brokered the…
Read More »Initiative 77, a Washington DC initiative that was passed by voters in the Nation’s Capital back in June is again back before the DC City Council, where a majority of members oppose the measure. City Councilors are now seriously considering repealing the measure and the city council’s Committee on the Whole will hold a public…
Read More »After the District of Columbia City council advanced an ordinance to repeal Initiative 77, which the tipped wage within the Nation’s Capital, the push-back was fast and furious. The Washington Post last week trumpeted the headline: “D.C. residents seethe as Council moves to overturn voter-approved wage hike” and the story spoke to the strange visual…
Read More »Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows, and the effort to undo the voters’ approval of Initiative 77 in the Nation’s Capital is a prime example. Recall that just three weeks ago by a 56-44% margin, District of Columbia voters approved a ballot question that would eliminate the tip credit by which restaurants pay tipped workers…
Read More »Speaking of the tipped wage and tip credits, the restaurant industry has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Labor challenging to the Obama-era regulation implementing the so-called 80-20 standard for tipped work and prohibiting the tip credit. The lawsuit was filed with the US District Court for Western Texas in Austin by the…
Read More »Effectively reinstating the ban on tip pooling that had been implemented by the Obama administration a few years ago, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development implemented a new regulation that took effect last Friday banning the mandatory sharing of tips in the state of Alaska. The effort was undertaken to nullify the Trump…
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