Labor hid it's own data

[The Grand Nudger]

In a completely unsurprising turn of events for the trump administration, it appears that the DOL intentionally omitted data that they claimed they had not generated, and could not generate, regarding a proposal to allow employers to steal their employees tips.  

Senior department political officials—faced with a government analysis showing that workers could lose billions of dollars in tips as a result of the proposal—ordered staff to revise the data methodology to lessen the expected impact, several of the sources said. Although later calculations showed progressively reduced tip losses, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and his team are said to have still been uncomfortable with including the data in the proposal. The officials disagreed with assumptions in the analysis that employers would retain their employees’ gratuities, rather than redistribute the money to other hourly workers. They wound up receiving approval from the White House to publish a proposal Dec. 5 that removed the economic transfer data altogether, the sources said.

https://bnanews.bna.com/daily-labor-repo...businesses

So, first they cooked the books..but even that wasn't enough to satisfy, and they went with the strategy of a full throated lie in support of deceit by omission. I don't know, in today's america..if that's gross malfeasance or a job well done? I guess, this time at least, it was a gift to a slightly less shitty NRA? In related "news"....

Issue: We are challenging the U.S. Department of Labor’s position that it can apply its 2011 federal tip-credit restrictions to employers who don't take a tip credit. Specifically, the DOL says it can prohibit these employers from setting up tip-pooling arrangements that include employees who are not customarily tipped, such as back-of-the-house staff.

http://www.restaurant.org/Restaurant-Law...ip-Pooling

Thoughts, opinions?

[Chad32]

Yeah, hide or destroy any evidence that proves your point wrong. This is why people in power need to be kept on a tight leash.

[brewer]

I'd like to see tipping go away and a living wage substituted, but don't think that's going to happen. And no, I don't want to tip the accountant that comes in once a week to do the books.

[Chad32]

Yeah. If I buy a $12 meal, and am expected to throw in another $2 in tips, why not just add that to the regular price and pay the waiters and waitresses a living wage?

[The Grand Nudger]

People chronically undertip, and no diner wants to try to sell a plate of fries two bucks more expensive than they already are.  They're counting on being able to impoverish their labor through our broad complicity.  

That's why.

Read that "think about the cooks" bullshit on the NRAs website. Yeah..NRA, why -don't- you start thinking about the cooks? Telling us we have to let them take money from people they underpay so they can give it (wink wink, nod) to anothe group of chronically underpaid people is some awfully ballsy shit. If a server wants to tip share (and the good ones know why they should) then so be it...but that doesn;t give dennys the right to reach into their own employees till..which is a thing they kind of frown on when an employee does it to them.

Personally, I think it's amusing that trying to sell -that- turd requires a pile of turds just to prop it up. It's an idea so bad you can't even get people on board by lying your ass off, which is rare, lol.

[Joods]

The problem with this is that tipping isn't just limited to the food industry. I, too, am in the service industry and the salon that I previously worked at had such a shitty system of how they paid us, that I greatly relied on my tips. Think about all the employees that get tipped that aren't in the food industry. Hotel workers, casino workers, barbers and hairdressers, cart pushers and baggers at the grocery store ( I know - it's now no longer customary to tip, but I still do when the cart pushers help me with heavy items). The list goes on.

Waiters and waitresses aren't the only people affected.

[Jane2d]

While personally I try to avoid establishments that utilize tip pooling, reading through all the arguments and most of the links, I cannot argue for the added federal level of involvement in this aspect of labor.

From one of the articles links:

Promulgation of the regulation would also make clear that where an employer does not claim the tip credit under section 3(m) and pays a direct wage that satisfies the FLSA’s minimum wage requirements, the treatment and disposition of tips is a matter of agreement between the employer and employees or of state law.

end quote

In the long run, employers who decide to 'tip-pool' will face issues of employee retention, employee poaching, trickling down to customer retention and it will balance out in the end.  The market will drive these employers to offer good wages to good servers to retain their services.  Additionally, the rule change does not ban server retained tips, leaving that part of the employment contract to the individual business.

[Whateverist]

This is what happens when we elect Twiddle Dee who is entirely without scruples and will engage in deliberate deception to enrich his own and to piss off the people who have scruples. Some choices are much, much worse than merely no significant improvement.

[Minimalist]

Thoughts, opinions?

A scum-sucking pig of a president appoint scum-sucking lackeys to do his bidding.  What's the surprise?

Tell me again, Snowflakes, how Hillary was the "same" as the WLB.