This Monday (December 4th 2017), the Trump Department of Labor released a proposed rule to rescind portions of its tip regulations. Here is the Economic Policy Institute's statement on the change and its implications. Essentially: the new language says that provided servers are paid minimum wage (most aren't, now), employers can take their tips. And not just take their tips to distribute them among the back-of-house staff who don't make tips— just pocket them, for whatever purpose, including giving them to shareholders.
Customers in the US are expected to tip because restaurant owners are allowed to pay their staff less than regular minimum wage; the federal minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 an hour. Customers are supposed to make up the rest in tips. Under these new rules, the food service industry basically gets to go "psych, we're paying $7.25 an hour now!" and treat all tips like random gifts to the business. Say you go eat at a Waffle House; the $3 you leave for the waiter is so that she gets paid, it's not a random $3 goodwill donation to the owners of Waffle House.
The restaurant lobby is going to argue that these rules are good, because back-of-house workers like cooks and dishwashers are poorly paid. And that part is true, $7.25 an hour is not enough to live on. You know what would actually fix that, though? Raising the minimum wage and requiring restaurants to pay more for labor.
The public comment period on the proposed rules change is open until January 4th, 2018. You can read the proposal in the Federal Register, and submit a formal comment, through this link.
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