Congress bans restaurants from skimming tips
By Lydia DePillis, CNNMoney
Restaurant servers dodged a bullet last week with a provision tucked into the $1.3 trillion federal spending bill.
Late last year, the Department of Labor proposed a rule that would have authorized restaurants to share tips between servers and cooks. That would allow employers to keep some tip money for themselves, as long as each worker made at least the full federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
Workers’ rights groups argued the rule change would lower the pay of those who work at restaurants, hotels and bars. Opponents of the rule held splashy public protests. The Labor Department received more than 218,000 mostly negative comments on the proposal.