Yesterday, the New York State Department of Labor issued the final version of the new Hospitality Industry Wage Order, as previously discussed here and here. The final Wage Order, substantially revises various long-standing New York industry rules, including, the tip credit amount, permissibility of tip pooling, and spread of hours calculations. The Final Wage Order includes only a few changes from the NYSDOL’s Proposed Order, which was issued for notice and comment in October:
- Defining a “service employee” as an employee “who is primarily engaged in providing direct personal service to guests, patrons or customers and who regularly receives tips from such guests, patrons or customers.”; and
- Revising language industry employers are required to include in bills, contracts or other writings to customers in order to convey the precise nature of any mandatory gratuity or service charge. These regulations are an effort to provide clarity to service charge requirements in the wake of Samiento v World Yacht, 10 NY3d 70 (2008).
We will provide further detailed analysis of the new Wage Order – as well as information about upcoming Jackson Lewis seminars on its implications – on www.JacksonLewis.com shortly.