Servers · Bartenders · Front of house
The Full Service Workers Alliance speaks for full-service restaurant workers in the policy fights over tips, wages, and scheduling. We bring the numbers and the experience of people who make up the most diverse industry in the United States.
About
We are an advocacy group for full-service restaurant workers who care about protecting their freedoms, their rights, and their livelihoods.
Laws about tipped work are often written by people who have never worked a Saturday double. A change to the tip credit, a service-charge rule, or a scheduling ordinance can move a server's take-home pay more than any raise. FSWA makes sure the workers affected are in the room when those rules are drafted.
We testify, we publish research, and we explain how a policy actually works on the floor, from the first table to the tip-out at close.
Issues & research
The policy questions we're working on now. Each one changes what a tipped worker takes home.
Eliminating the tip credit is sold as a raise. In practice, tipping falls and menu prices rise, and servers can end up with less per shift.
Toast, Q1 2026: WA tips averaged 17.8% and CA 17.3%, against 18.8% nationally. Tip-credit states ran 20–21%.
Tips are now exempt from federal income tax, but many states don't follow automatically.
The federal break is temporary. It covers tips through the 2028 tax year and then expires unless Congress extends it. We're pushing to make it permanent so servers aren't hit with a tax increase in 2029.
The ask: make the federal exemption permanent, and have states conform so servers keep all of it.
Federal rules now let some non-tipped staff share in tip pools. We're pressing the Department of Labor to protect the tips guests leave for their server.
Steep, fast minimum wage hikes don't raise what restaurant workers take home if the shifts disappear. Owners respond with smaller staffs, shorter hours, and closures. Escalators tied to inflation or median pay make it worse by raising the floor automatically, whatever the local economy is doing.
Seattle's Secure Scheduling Ordinance promised predictability. Its penalties for schedule changes made it harder to pick up and swap shifts, which is how many servers manage their income.
Media & testimony
Our findings, on Substack. Analysis of tip data, wage bills, and local ordinances, written from the floor.
Subscribe on SubstackPolicy alerts
A short email on the bills, ordinances, and rules that affect tipped pay, from Congress and the Department of Labor to statehouses and city councils across the country. What's moving, what it does, and what you can do before the vote. No fluff, no fundraising asks.
The federal deduction for tips covers tax years through 2028. Without an extension from Congress, servers' tips become taxable again in 2029.
What you can do Ask your member of Congress to make it permanent.
Federal rules let some non-tipped staff share in tip pools. FSWA is asking the Department of Labor to protect the tips guests leave for their server.
What you can do Tell us how tip pooling works where you work. Your story strengthens the case.
A roundup of states and cities with active bills, ballot measures, or ordinances on the tip credit, minimum wage, and tax treatment of tips.
What you can do Find your state, check the next hearing date, and plan to show up or submit comment.
Every issue: what's moving, what it means for your paycheck, and the next date that matters.
Join
Membership is free. Members hear first when a bill or ordinance threatens tipped income, and we ask some of them to share their story with lawmakers.
Press or booking inquiry? Choose "Media" below.