Today, six CPR Member Scholars and staff members sent a letter to the Department of Labor's (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, calling on the agency to withdraw its proposal to repeal an Obama-era rule aimed at preventing employers from taking workers' hard-earned tips. Last week, Bloomberg Law uncovered a deliberate effort by the DOL to conceal an analysis showing that the proposal would allow business owners and managers to steal and misappropriate billions of dollars – that's "billions" with a "b" – of tips from workers. This theft would be especially devastating for the thousands of restaurant workers and bartenders whose tips represent the vast majority of their take-home pay.
According to the Bloomberg Law article, DOL leadership balked at the original cost-benefit analysis that career staff had produced because it showed precisely what worker advocates claimed it would: This attack against a sensible safeguard could result in the transfer of billions of dollars from hard-working Americans to their bosses. Initially, DOL responded by demanding that staff rework the cost-benefit analysis until it produced a more politically palatable result. As malleable as cost-benefit analysis is, the career staff were never able to satisfy the demands of DOL leadership, and eventually leadership simply abandoned the effort, buried the damning analyses, and proceeded as though it had never seen them.
The timing of Bloomberg Law's discovery of this malfeasance on the part of the DOL is especially noteworthy as it came just days before the end of the comment period (11:59 p.m. Eastern time today, Feb. 5). Because this information was concealed until the last minute, the public has been deprived of its right to meaningfully participate in the rulemaking process as required by law. Our comment letter notes:
The DOL's apparent cover-up defeats the principle of meaningful public participation in the rulemaking process, which is a central pillar of our system of administrative law. By denying the public complete and relevant information on which to assess the proposed Tip Pooling Rule, the DOL has inhibited the public's ability to provide it with meaningful feedback as part of the notice-and-comment process.
The comment letter concludes by calling on the DOL to immediately withdraw the proposal. Failing that, it calls on the agency to formally release the original cost-benefit analysis and allow the public at least 120 days to review and comment on that analysis.
Signing the letter with me are CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity, Sid Shapiro, Amy Sinden, and Rena Steinzor, and CPR Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin.
A copy of the comment letter is available on CPR's website.
Showing 2,834 results
Katie Tracy | February 5, 2018
Today, six CPR Member Scholars and staff members sent a letter to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division, calling on the agency to withdraw its proposal to repeal an Obama-era rule aimed at preventing employers from taking workers’ hard-earned tips. Last week, Bloomberg Law uncovered a deliberate effort by the DOL to […]
Katie Tracy | February 1, 2018
On the morning of January 26, 2016, Seattle police were called to a construction site where a worker, Harold Felton, was trapped in a collapsed trench. By the time officers arrived, the rescue operation had turned into a recovery; Felton, 36, had died at the scene. Felton was working as part of a two-man team […]
Matthew Freeman | January 31, 2018
During the State of the Union address last night, no one was surprised to hear President Trump brag about all the work his administration has done slashing regulatory safeguards for health, safety, the environment, and financial security. It’s clearly one of his proudest first-year accomplishments — making us all less safe and more vulnerable to […]
James Goodwin | January 31, 2018
President Trump’s first State of the Union address contained numerous outrageous claims and statements, rendering a full dissection and critique practically impossible. Many have already singled out one line of the speech as worthy of particular condemnation, so I’ll add mine. Early on, Trump made this statement to the rapturous applause of his conservative allies […]
William Funk | January 30, 2018
Progressives have rightfully taken issue with the Trump administration’s policy goals, from immigration to the environment, from health care to worker safety. Given the president’s decidedly unprogressive stances, one should not be surprised at the policy reversals from the prior administration. One might be surprised, however, and dismayed as well, at the cavalier disregard that […]
James Goodwin | January 29, 2018
Perhaps because he has so few real accomplishments to his name, President Donald Trump has developed a nasty habit of embellishing his record. From the size of the crowd at his inauguration to the number of floors in Trump Tower, he simply won’t let a little thing like “reality” or “facts” or even “cardinal numbers” […]
Matt Shudtz | January 26, 2018
Next Tuesday, President Trump will share his view of the state of our union. And if his words correlate with his actions over the last year, the dominant theme will be one of division and disruption. Like no president in recent history, Donald Trump has pushed U.S. residents to cordon ourselves off into dueling tribes […]
Daniel Farber | January 25, 2018
Originally published on The Regulatory Review. Reprinted with permission. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a central instrument of the modern regulatory state. Whether from the perspective of environmental protection or regulatory economics, 2017 has not been a good year. Experience to date under the Trump Administration is suggestive of industry capture or reflexive […]
Dave Owen | January 22, 2018
Originally published on Environmental Law Prof Blog. Today, the United States Supreme Court decided National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, a case determining whether challenges to the "Clean Water Rule" or "Waters of the United States Rule" should be heard in federal district court or in the United States Court of Appeals for […]