Trump Is About to Make Tip-Pooling Legal Again, Here’s What That Means for Restaurant Workers

If  just-announced changes to Department of Labor regulations go past the proposal stage, employers will be able to pool tips earned by servers, allowing them to share the tips with untipped employees like cooks, dishwashers, and others in the back of house — if they share them at all.

The proposed changes, first announced in July, roll back the Obama administration’s 2011 regulations that expressly prohibited the distribution of tips to anyone other than the front-of-house staff who earned them. Backers argue it’s a regulation that could go a long way towards erasing income inequality between back and front of the house. Others say it’s a recipe for a host of evils, ranging from tip-pocketing by management to unsustainably high labor costs. All optimists and skeptics can seem to agree on is this: It’s complicated.

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