Workforce Bulletin

Section 3(m)(2)(B) of the FLSA prohibits employers, including managers or supervisors, from keeping any portion of an employee’s tips.  Accordingly, the law has been clear that a manager or supervisor cannot participate in a general employee tip pool, since tip pools including tips of other employees. 

Although this appears clear at first blush, the blurred lines of restaurant staffing creates ambiguity as to who is exactly a manager or supervisor.  Non-exempt employees often work in a certain supervisory capacity as team or shift leads.  Conversely, it is also common for managers and supervisors in restaurants to perform a certain amount of non-supervisory duties.  So, when are employees with minor supervisory responsibilities treated as managers for tip pooling?  And can managers participate in tip pools when they perform non-supervisory duties?

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”), in its recent decision in Graymont PA, Inc., 364 NLRB No. 37 (June 29, 2016), has fired the latest salvo in its long running dispute with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concerning the issue of what legal standard should be applied when a union claims that an employer has made a unilateral change in terms and conditions of employment during the term of a collective bargaining agreement and the employer claims that the union waived its right to bargain over the topic in question in a ...

It is Employment Law 101 – employment in the United States is generally at-will.  Equally elementary to HR professionals and employment counsel is the use of a good, strong at-will policy and/or agreement.  So common is the use of at-will policies and agreements that you would be hard pressed to find an employment handbook or an employer that does not make some use of them.

Notwithstanding this universal use, the National Labor Relations Board is poised to target non-union employers which maintain at-will policies or agreements.  Although the NLRB has taken several steps to ease the ...