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Jan 3, 11, 6:44 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/nyregion/03tips.html?hpw
...And now, restaurant managers are scrambling to comply with a new set of state labor regulations — issued two weeks ago and put into effect on Saturday — that for the first time seeks to clarify how restaurants should handle tips. In an acknowledgment of the time crunch, state labor officials are giving restaurants until the end of February to put changes in place, but they must be retroactive to Jan. 1.
“Never before were there any regulations regarding tips in New York State,” except for a mysterious paragraph in a 1968 law that barred employers from appropriating tips, said Jean Lindholm, a supervising labor standards investigator at the State Department of Labor. An inconsistent mixture of Labor Department opinions and lawsuit judgments has governed industry practice through the years, she said, adding, “It was time, long overdue, to clarify the rules.”
The new regulations apply to workers in restaurants and hotels and cover a number of issues, including who should pay for laundering “wash-and-wear” uniforms, like special T-shirts. The rules also raise the minimum wage for tipped employees, to $5 from $4.65 an hour for food service workers and to $5.65 from $4.90 an hour for service workers, a category that includes coat check workers in a restaurant or porters in hotels. (There is a separate minimum for workers at resort hotels.)
...And now, restaurant managers are scrambling to comply with a new set of state labor regulations — issued two weeks ago and put into effect on Saturday — that for the first time seeks to clarify how restaurants should handle tips. In an acknowledgment of the time crunch, state labor officials are giving restaurants until the end of February to put changes in place, but they must be retroactive to Jan. 1.
“Never before were there any regulations regarding tips in New York State,” except for a mysterious paragraph in a 1968 law that barred employers from appropriating tips, said Jean Lindholm, a supervising labor standards investigator at the State Department of Labor. An inconsistent mixture of Labor Department opinions and lawsuit judgments has governed industry practice through the years, she said, adding, “It was time, long overdue, to clarify the rules.”
The new regulations apply to workers in restaurants and hotels and cover a number of issues, including who should pay for laundering “wash-and-wear” uniforms, like special T-shirts. The rules also raise the minimum wage for tipped employees, to $5 from $4.65 an hour for food service workers and to $5.65 from $4.90 an hour for service workers, a category that includes coat check workers in a restaurant or porters in hotels. (There is a separate minimum for workers at resort hotels.)