The federal government is changing the rules on how prone workers are paid, in a move that according to workers’ advocates will take $ 700 million a year from the pockets of servers, waiters, shopkeepers and other service workers.
The Department of Labor finalized a rule Tuesday afternoon that allowed employers to require prone workers, such as waiters or waiters, to share their advice with workers without tips, such as cooks and dishwashers.
The rule also eliminated a prerequisite on how much time could be spent on workers prone to engage in non-tip jobs. Previously, the government limited the amount of time a tipped worker could devote to tipless activities to 20% of their turn. Removing that limit allows employers to drastically pay workers, according to Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the Institute for Economic Policy, who worked in the Labor department under President Obama.
“It allows employers to spend more time doing jobs without tips while still receiving sub-minimum wage,” Shierholz said.
For workers who rely primarily on customer advice, tipless work is part of the job. Servers and bartenders often help set up a restaurant before opening or help clean up after closing the establishment and leaving guests. The new rule will allow employers to change much more from this job without tips to their lower paid workforce, the PPE said.
For example, instead of having three dishwashers on staff, a restaurant might decide to hire just one dishwasher and require all waiters to wash the dishes periodically as part of their shift, according to PPE. This would save a great deal for the restaurant, which is required to pay the dishwasher a minimum wage of $ 7.25, but can pay the tip servers. just $ 2.13 in some states.
Over the course of a year, tipped workers would lose more than $ 700 million under this new rule, according to PPE, last fall. That number has probably increased since the coronavirus pandemic, Shierholz noted. With the drastic reduction in the indoor dining room, many restaurants that have managed to stay open have moved on to most jobless jobs, such as preparation of transport orders.
Share and share equally
According to the department’s analysis, the DOL’s tip-sharing requirement could transfer $ 109 million from prone workers to its home counterparts. In a press release, Wage and Hour Administrator Cheryl Stanton said the new rule could increase the income of workers away from home and “reduce wage disparities” between workers receiving tips and workers who do not. reben.
In many restaurants, domestic workers have traditionally earned more than their domestic counterparts. At the national level, restoration work remains one of the lowest paid jobs. On average, waiters and waitresses earn just $ 26,600 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while dishwashers earn $ 24,400 and cooks, $ 27,550.
“Don’t fix the low wages of the highest paid workers by taking them out of the wages of the second highest paid workers. You pay them more,” said Shierholz of the PPE.