Although it seems we’ve been advising on the changes – and changes back – regarding the federal tip credit rules for quite some time, there is still news to report. Last week, along with the Texas Restaurant Association, the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Law Center (NRA) filed an emergency motion seeking a temporary injunction against…
Read More »Massachusetts lawmakers are now considering legislation that would phase out the state tipped minimum wage and mandate one uniform minimum wage by 2028. Under the legislation filed by Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier (Pittsfield), the current tipped worker wage of $5.55 (and slated to rise to $6.75 by 2023) would be phased out as the tipped wage…
Read More »The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a new rule on tip pooling last Friday that subject employers to more significant monetary penalties for mishandling workers’ tips. Under the previous DOL regulation, put in place during the Trump administration, an employer could be subjected to civil penalties if the employer’s action of mishandling or illegally…
Read More »Along a similar line, a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of California has dismissed a lawsuit brought by One Fair Wage (an SEIU-sponsored advocacy group associated with the Restaurant Opportunities Center), ruling that the organization did not have standing to bring the complaint. The suit, filed against Darden Restaurants, alleged that the…
Read More »It seems there are some out there who refuse to acknowledge that the tip credit and the minimum wage can and should be allowed to peacefully co-exist. As a case in point, in the wake of President Biden’s Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour, DOL issued a proposed…
Read More »Last week on a straight party-line vote of 26-15, the Delaware General Assembly passed legislation, already approved by the state senate, that will incrementally raise the state minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. The proposal, which Governor John Carney is expected to sign, makes the President’s home state the latest to adopt a…
Read More »Call it the “Final Rule” that isn’t, as the Department of Labor has now delayed the implementation of its Final Rule on tip pooling under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Tip Regulations Final Rule was just finalized in late December and was set to become effective on March 1, 2021. However, in one…
Read More »Democratic representatives in Congress made good on promises to file legislation increasing the federal minimum wage this week with The Raise the Wage Act of 2021 being officially filed. As we know there was much talk during the campaign on the democratic side – from President Biden as well as several reps and senators –…
Read More »Underscoring the importance of who’s calling the shots at the NLRB, DOL and other federal departments during the transition from the Trump to the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) this week announced that it was withdrawing three opinion letters that address compliance issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The…
Read More »With the signing of H.5250, the omnibus Economic Stimulus bill on January 5, the last day of the legislative session, our decade-long effort to correct the Massachusetts tip pooling law finally bore fruit. Governor Charlie Baker last week signed the legislation into law including a critical provision amending the statutory definition of wait staff employee…
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