The DOL recently announced its final rule regarding when and how, if at all, employers can share tips with cooks, servers and others on the restaurant team.
Among other things, the Department:
- removes prohibitions for those employers that do not take a tip credit from implementing mandatory “nontraditional” tip pools;
- prohibits employers from keeping employees’ tips for any purpose;
- requires those employers who collect tips in order to facilitate a mandatory tip pool to redistribute those tips fully and no less often than when wages are paid so as to avoid “keep[ing]” those tips in violation of section 3(m)(2)(B); and
- codifies recent guidance explaining that an employer may take a tip credit for time that an employee in a tipped occupation performs related non-tipped duties either contemporaneously with or for a reasonable time immediately before or after performing tipped duties.
You can read the final rule by clicking here.