On December 22, 2020 the Department of Labor unveiled a final rule that will put into place a large swath of changes that will affect tipped employees across the country. One of the most troubling changes that will take effect is that employers will now be able to claim a tip credit on back of the house staff, which means that employees who are not traditionally and customarily tipped will now be able to participate in tip pools. This means that cooks, janitors and other traditionally non-tipped employees will be able to claim a portion of the tips that front of the house employees receive. Fortunately, this change will not be extended to managerial staff, who will still be unable to participate in the tip pool. At the moment, this new rule change is set to take effect 60 days after December 12, 2020. 

Generally speaking the FLSA mandates that employers must pay their employees a minimum of $7.25 an hour for the work they perform. Among the various exemptions and loopholes that are found within the FLSA is an employer’s ability to claim a “tip credit” on certain tipped employees. When an employer elects to take a tip credit it allows them to pay the selected employees only $2.13 an hour so long as those employees still make a minimum of $7.25 an hour when the tips they have received are taken into consideration. Moreover, an employer is able to pool together all of the tips earned in a night and disperse it among the tipped employees. This is called a “tip pool.”Continue Reading Department of Labor Issues New Regulations for Tipped Employees