DOL Reopens Rulemaking Process for Trump Era Regulations

In the last few months of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued controversial final rules relating to independent contractor classification and the ability of non-tip earning employees to participate in tip pools. Both sets of regulations were originally supposed to go into effect in March 2021

However, now that the DOL is under new leadership, it looks increasingly likely that both sets of final rules will be entirely scrapped or drastically modified. On February 3, 2021, the DOL formally delayed the implementation of the regulations and reopened the notice and comment process. The public will now have several weeks to submit additional comments. After public comments are received, the DOL will then review and reconsider these last-minute Trump era wage and hour regulations.

It will likely take several more months for the DOL to announce whether one or both of these rules will be discarded, or issue new regulatory text.