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…
Read More »Our democracy is predicated on the three branches of government being equal in power, but over the past week or so, the judiciary – and the US Supreme Court in particular – has sucked all the power out of the room! Most recently, the court’s decision in the Janus case (which we cover below) has…
Read More »The US Department of Labor this week issued Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2018-3 on the impact of the tip pooling provisions contained in the Omnibus Spending Bill signed into law by the President a few weeks ago. The FAB makes clear that employers who pay the full FLSA minimum wage are no longer prohibited from…
Read More »It would appear that legislative proposals governing tipped wages are becoming more commonplace, and more restrictive. As we know, the Omnibus Spending Bill signed into law a week ago by the President contained a compromise provision that specifically prohibits employers from taking money from the tips left for their workers. Further, that provision also seems…
Read More »The Department of Labor’s new amnesty program for companies that owe back wages becomes effective next Tuesday, April 3. The Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program allows employers to self-report wage and hour violations without legal consequences so long as they are not prior offenders and they pay affected workers the full back pay owed.…
Read More »The Omnibus spending bill, unveiled by Congressional negotiators Wednesday and passed by the House yesterday, includes a number of provisions relevant to pending labor issues. Of primary concern is a so-called compromise provision on the tip pooling issue that in actuality is potentially devastating to small businesses. The compromise, which was authored by Senator Patty…
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