Should restaurant servers share tips? Trump administration wants to make tip-pooling legal again

[ecstatic]

Under a proposed change by the U.S. Labor Department, restaurant owners could take away gratuities from servers and share them with traditionally non-tipped staff such as cooks and dishwashers.
...
Under a proposed change by the U.S. Labor Department, restaurant owners could take away gratuities from servers and share them with traditionally non-tipped staff such as cooks and dishwashers.

If the proposal passes, the change would roll back the Obama administration's 2011 regulations, which prohibits the distribution of tips to anyone other than the front-of-house staff who earned them.

Supporters argue the regulation would narrow the gap between tipped servers and hourly cooks. Servers' wages would be bumped up from the tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour to the $7.25 an hour minimum wage rate.

http://www.pennlive.com/food/index.ssf/2017/12/tip-pooling_restaurants_trump.html

There's also a paywall article in the Washington Post. And here is an interesting related tweet:

Link to tweet

[ck4829]

1. Hmm, I dunno, sounds a little collectivist.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. I was just going to write about his collectivist views, antithetical to individual achievements.

.

What would Ayn Rand say?

.

[blogslut]

2. It doesn't happen in all states or cities but...

where I come from, servers are paid a "tipped wage" - $2.13-ish per hour. Cooks, bus people and dishwashers are paid at least the federal minimum hourly wage.

[flotsam]

3. Restaurant owners "We fuck the back of the house out of a living wage too"

"and if the pool is 6 foot deep we would never claim it was only 5 foot 6 inches-after all, what kind of scummers do you think we are?"...

[Sailor65x1]

4. It seems fair

As long as the servers really do get the base bump to match others' base, plus the shared tips. Tips very much reflect more than just the server's performance.

Edited for poor punctuation

[Hoyt]

6. Is this a bad thing as long as managers dont cheat staff, and its not mandatory?

I honestly don’t know.

I’ve worked for tips where it made a big difference, but it wasn’t a restaurant. Too clumsy and anxious to work with diners like a patient, eloquent waiter. Probably would get more complaints than tips. Bartender, too messy.

A good manager would make sure wages are set properly, sure that’s difficult. And make sure tips are split in a fair way, again tough to define. But the way I understand it works now sounds open to abuse.

Whatever, it doesn’t sound like a big change if people can agree on what’s fair. That’s a big if.

[doc03]

7. Why would a server give you good service if the dishwasher is

getting half his or her tips? I read yesterday that the restaurant could also take the tips that exceeded minimum wage.
Today when I was at Starbucks a drive-thru customer said Merry Christmas and gave the staff a $100 tip. I would be POed
if the manager took it I think. Way back in the day the waitresses voluntarily chipped in to give us busboys $4.00 a day,
that gave us the minimum wage of $1.25 at the time, but it was voluntary.

[smirkymonkey]

8. If the non-tipped staff is making a regular legal minimum wage at least, then no.

The servers are only making $2.13 per hour so their tips are the bulk of their wages. And they are taxed on their assumed tips based upon their receipts. I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. They have it hard enough without being cheated out of their hard earned money.

[dembotoz]

9. if the tip is Don't order the tuna tonight....please share away...if its the servers cash? no don't