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Listen, I hate the tipping culture here just as much as everybody else, but the fact is, if you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out. Should employees get a decent wage without it, absolutely yes. But they don't right now, and you not tipping isn't going to change that.
If we continue to tip as a wage subsidy, where is the motivation to make companies actually pay their workers?
I agree with you, actually. If you don't want to tip, fine, don't tip. But don't go to a restaurant and then not tip, either, because not only are you still giving the company money, you're shortchanging the actual person you want to help.
you are proposing that if we all stop tipping, companies will be motivated to pay their workers; you are correct, this is what would happen if we all stopped tipping at the same time.
this process is known as collective action. it is incredibly important to remember that collective action only works when it actually happens. in other words, your individual action of not tipping your waiter is ONLY beneficial to your waiter if you can make sure one else tips either.
do you have this power? (i think you don’t; if you do i beg of you to exercise it lol.)
now consider who actually holds the power here. at any point, your restaurant’s owner could institute a no-tip policy, thereby ensuring that no one has to tip, ever. several restaurants already have done this, and it works. now, you might (correctly) note that this may gives an unfair advantage to other competing restaurants who do not implement no-tip policy. this is where local and regional policy can come in to help coordinate transitioning to a more helpful model of compensating employees.
so there’s kind of this imbalance, where yeah technically it’s possible for us as eaters of food to “fix” the tipping problem, but its way way easier for the people in charge (whether that’s government or owners) to fix it, because they have the power of coordination on their side.
tldr, tip your waiters and advocate for anti-tipping policies if you want to maximize long term benefits for everyone.
benefits for everyone.
No, not benefits for everyone. Servers will never get a wage that's equivalent to the tips they get now. Never.
Go survey servers on the subject and see what they think.
I'm not necessarily against no tipping areas, but I'm not going to act like it benefits the workers. It's more of a crab bucket mentality where we bring the better paying low-skill job in line with all the rest.
If we don’t tip, where is the motivation to make companies actually pay their workers?
Employees who won't be able to make a living will go elsewhere. it's not easy and instant, but eventually if a restaraunt can't staff itself, it will collapse.
We should absolutely not be subsidizing restaraunt owners who are only keeping a float by paying low wages. if they can't afford to properly pay their staff, they don't deserve to operate.
Employees who won’t be able to make a living will go elsewhere. it’s not easy and instant, but eventually if a restaraunt can’t staff itself, it will collapse.
Then why not skip the step of customers choosing to tip at all? Why wouldn't wait staff just protest/quit to get better wages? Wait staff collective bargaining is > than consumers collective bargaining simply because it's a smaller population that's easier to get together under a shared premise. The reality is that nearly every waiter/waitress I've talked to about it PREFER the current tip structure. They make more money.
Years ago when I first started out working, I also preferred it. I could walk home with a pocket full of cash well above minimum wage if the night was good.
The issue here isn't tipping in general... It's the audacity to try and increase percentages while prices are also going up for everything, including that same meal compared to a couple years ago.
Tipping in general is bullshit and we need to fix the root cause of employers not being required or willing to pay fair wages, across the entire economy, not just service industries.
It works pretty well in developed countries
Visiting Japan was incredible, every price was transparent and you paid exactly what the menu said. Wish we could get that going here.
And you can find really cheap delicious food in Japan.
I got chased down the street on my first day by someone I tipped. I didn't know it was actually taboo. Apparently tipping is an insult. The staff chased me down on the street to return it to me.
My man, I have no idea why you got down voted. You're 100% correct. Can't afford to tip, can't afford to eat out. Eating out is a luxury, not a necessity. Grocery stores have frozen food if you don't want to cook.
Eating out is luxury and not necessity and that makes tiping a necessity?
No, but it makes tipping a necessity if you go out. My stance on this is that if you want to enact change, stop eating out. Continuing to eat out but then not tipping doesn't do anything except shortchange the wait staff. The company still gets your money.
When you say that common indulgences are "luxuries" are not required, you're promoting austerity. You're asking people to forgo life's pleasures for no real gain. That NEVER works. People won't just stay at home eating simple food unless they will go broke otherwise. With a world of billionaires we can't ask for austerity; it's morally bankrupt.
I mean, that feels like common sense to me. I have less money than I had last year, so my girlfriend and I eat out less, I buy less video games, I buy more chicken and less beef, I buy less alcohol, etc. etc. It's just a reality of inflation.
We avoided the recession, the result is inflation is destroying our wallets, so we have to spend less to still pay our bills.
We avoided the recession, the result is inflation
That's more of a function of corporate greed than anything else. They're all hiding behind each other while ripping you off, and getting away with it because it's difficult to call out any one company when they're all doing it.
What are you going to do about it, compete in the marketplace? The barriers to entry are high enough that that is extraordinarily difficult. And if you do manage it, why would you charge less than market rate? And you're likely to just get bought out by a bigger competitor anyway, so grats on your cash out.
I mean, sure, we can say it's corporate greed, but also we've put over a trillion dollars extra into the economy in a short span due to COVID and Build Back Better, while at the same time there were supply shortages for years, plus record low unemployment causing a raising of wages, all without the fed reacting quick enough by increasing interest rates sooner. We've got every textbook condition for an increase in inflation rates.
Don't forget the PPP where Trump refused to sign it if it had proper oversight.
That is very true! I'm very salty Trump was able to just do that, but I couldn't get my student loans deleted. :l
OP is right, and the users on Lemmy are salty. Waiters make $2.13 / hour they survive off tips. If you don't tip, the system doesn't change, you're just an asshole
If nobody tips for their entire shift they will make $7.25-$15 an hour, not $2.13. That $5.12-$12.87 is just pocketed by the restaurant if they get tipped.
That's not true. The minimum wage guarantee is by pay period, not by shift
Waiters make $2.13 / hour they survive off tips.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped No.
Listen dude, that's average wage. If you got stiffed one night out of the week, you're SOL that night and you made $2.13 / hour. If you make less than $7.25 hourly in a pay period then you'll be brought up to minimum wage, but in any given night, servers only make $2.13 hourly without tips.
It's not about "not tipping", it's 15% vs 25% and unreasonable expectations.
Ah, that makes sense, thanks.
If you can't afford to live working for tips, you shouldn't work at a job that's dependent on tips.
“You should just make more money!”
"You should just work somewhere that doesn't depend on handouts from customers for your wages!"
“If you don’t like it here then leave!”
This, but unironically.
I hear a lot of this rhetoric but it sounds like you're just saying this is how it is and I'm going to accept it which I think is a cowards approach. If you want to make change then you have to do something about it by going to restaurants and not tipping you are sending a message. Does it hurt the server? Maybe, but in the end it's not my responsibility to pay them and if more people stop tipping then maybe things will change. With that being said, I don't go out to any places that expect me to tip because I know there are people like you that think I'm evil because I don't want to give my hard-earned money away to someone else for doing their job.
Maybe I should've worded my original comment better, because I never said we should just accept it. I explicitly think we shouldn't accept it by refusing to do business at places that push tipping instead of paying their staff proper wages.
Probably should've led with that.
It's true. The consumer is always who pays.
Tipping culture is basically a way for employers to allow customers to decide to undercut the employees and it's remarkably inappropriate.
I'm a world without tipping, the wait staff will make normal wages, the food prices will go up. If you cannot afford that, you will eat at home.