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80/20 Hindsight: The DOL Issues Opinion Letter That Concludes The 80/20 Side Work Rule For Tipped Employees No Longer Applies

11/15/18

By: Michael Hill
Navigating the laws for paying tipped employees just got a little easier. In a new opinion letter, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) effectively nullified the “80/20 Rule,” which divided courts throughout the country and became the anchor point for several collective and class actions against employers of tipped employees.
While the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, employers of tipped employees, such as waiters, bartenders, and bellhops, are permitted to pay such employees $2.13/hour and take a “tip credit” for the difference between this wage and the federal minimum wage (provided the employees receive notice and the tip credit does not exceed what they actually earn in tips).
The DOL’s 80/20 Rule acknowledged the fact that tipped employees may spend some time performing tasks that do not generate tips. Servers in a restaurant, for example, generally spend time performing “side work” that is incidental but related to serving customers, such as rolling silverware, making coffee, cleaning tables, or sweeping the dining room floor, in addition to waiting tables. Under the 80/20 Rule, an employer still could claim a tip credit for all of such an employee’s time, as long as the employee did not spend more than 20% of his or her time performing “general preparation work or maintenance.”
Strict application of the 80/20 Rule essentially meant employers of tipped employees were expected to monitor each and every task their employees performed and to maintain meticulous time logs accounting for each individual task. Some courts recognized this was infeasible, while others held this to be what the law required. The tide of litigation rolled in, with predictable swearing contests over whether servers and bartenders spent more than 20% of their time performing non-tip-generating tasks.
The DOL now, however, has recognized the confusion its 80/20 Rule generated and clarified that employers may take the tip credit for all of their tipped employees time, no matter how much time is spent on related “side work” tasks, so long as these side tasks are performed contemporaneously with the employees’ customer-service duties or within a reasonable time immediately beforehand or afterwards and the tasks are listed for that job position in the Occupational Information Network (O*NET).
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Michael Hill at mhill@fmglaw.com.