From: New Jersey Law Journal
An operator of Houlihan’s restaurants in New Jersey and New York has agreed to pay $5 million in a consent judgment after the U.S. Department of Labor accused it of illegally pocketing a portion of servers’ and bartenders’ tips.
It is likely that OMB will begin the review of Treasury tax regulations, an exemption from OMB review which was granted over three decades ago that should never occurred in the first place.
Having worked for more than a half century to vest OMB with the authority to review regulations I doubt whether there are any new arguments against OMB’s likely new role will emerge during the current debate.
The traditional arguments include the lack of OMB expertise in the particular subject matter at hand. I heard this argument many times over when OMB (OIRA and its predecessor organizations) began to review EPA regulations.
From: The New York Times
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Angelo I. Amador, a senior official at the National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group, said in a statement that he was pleased that the new legislation would make it possible for cooks, dishwashers and other workers to share tips. But he expressed concern that “the enforcement and penalty language for unintentional violations goes too far.”
The provision would give the secretary of labor broader authority to impose civil penalties on employers who steal tips. For example, workers currently must show that the theft was repeated or willful. Now, civil penalties could be applied to any instance of tip theft.
From: BNA
Ben Penn, Reporter
Labor Department leadership convinced OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to overrule the White House regulatory affairs chief and release a controversial tip-sharing rule without data showing it could allow businesses to skim $640 million in gratuities.
From: Washington Examiner
Is the Labor Department scheming to take away restaurant servers’ tips? That’s the message some labor advocates are sending in response to a proposed rule-making by the Trump administration that would permit kitchen staff in certain states to receive a portion of servers’ tips.
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