'tipping' in restaurants and other places

Unionist, it seems like you're condoning not leaving tips. I know that's not your message but we must be careful. Until we are able to get our allies to join in the struggle we must ensure they're paid a living wage. We're all part of that. Sorry, if I can afford to eat out, that's expected. (I don't eat out)

I just see reason's to avoid tipping as right-wing drift. I try to tip 20% minimum if I can go out. They deserve to go out too.

Yes, sorry U, I apologize if I misconstrued where the conversation was going.

Like I said, you were never going in that direction but I was concerned the conversation was leaning that way.

I'm with you but it ain't practical right now, is it?...

We're forced to subsidize our indulgences.

And notwithstanding change, we need to recognize our allies, no? It's easy to tell them to Unionize. A lot harder in theory. Most are transient. I'm with you U, but how do we deal with the harsh realities?...

Hi jas. Sorry if I'm guilting. But if you can afford to go out, you can afford to tip.

If we foresake our sisters, so be it. They bear the brunt of the service industry, we can't forget that. Unionist is the most relevant but I'm afraid he has no dog in the fight.

Until we recognize, we'll plod along, everyone cut-throating each other?

I'm not trying to guilt anybody. I'm pretty poor myself and can't afford shit. But I recognize other workers.

And if I think I can afford a meal out those workers deserve a tip.

It's so idealistic jas?

We need to come together.

And it is my business. You made it so...

Most people I've known working in the restaurant industry are doing so because of the money, not in spite of it. See the difference? If you work in the kind of restaurant where 18% tips are expected, it is not uncommon for you to take home $200 a night or more in tips. This is often (and currently) more than I make in an 8-hour day. But you want me to feel sorry for this person, who has chosen this job because of the money they can make? Why?

No, Rev. I don't feel sorry for someone who makes more money than me. I feel happy for them, and I'm glad they are in a job they are enjoying. 

Unionist wrote:

I find this story less than shocking. Put all that righteous indignation into organizing a union. Otherwise, you never know what bullshit reason you'll be fired for next.

Post of the thread.

no amount of tipping is going make a meaningful difference to those really in need when trickled down to the kitchen staff. They're the ones making that lofty minimum wage but every night end up with less than 20-50% of the money that the servers took home from their 'unliveable' 5$/hr or whatever base pay. Servers are rich, they make significantly more than 4 year degrees in less hours per week.

maybe someone can modernize the restaurant experience to have customers order their meals with their phones and have the cooks bring it out, I think they have the capacity to carry a tray and take money.

Ideally, as Unionist and others point out, fair remuneration for labour would negate having customers pick up the slack in compensation from the food and beverage industry.  For many people, an hour or so of sitting down in a restaurant constitutes a well earned treat from their own low paid existence.  The issue of tipping food and beverage workers is also of some significance for the minimum wage retail sector employee, the corporate chain convenience store clerk, gas station attendants, the shoe person at the bowling alley, the barber, the kid who delivers newspapers, drive through employees, etc.  If we apply the same standard everywhere, a day at the mall for example would require that a tidy sum be brought along just for the round of tips that might be incurred, on top of everything else.  We should feel the same way, and I suspect most of us do, about charity work in society and the circumstances making that necessary.  Where tips are concerned, the automatic inclusion of a set percentage as a non-negotiable part of the bill, in the same way as the tax portion of the bill is applied, is simply another way that the corporate world fleeces workers in our society while shirking responsibility to their employees in providing a living wage in return for labour, in order to enhance profit.  In a way, we abet these lecherous and unfair industry practices by providing cover through tips for inadequate compensation levels.  In essence, we let industry and government off the hook when we tip, in the same way that charity work does.  This is not to say that we shouldn’t tip, but that industry and politics should be held to account by both workers and the general public being expected to ante up for the sake of corporate and bourgeoisie profit margins, over and above markups as they exist.

And the industry damn well knows what they're doing by allowing percentages to be coded in on their bill processing machines.  It's not the worker writing in their own percentage codes.  The percentage becomes the industry standard, at 10, 15, 17% or whatever, by and large as a top up to both low paid workers and low salary managers alike.

Slumberjack wrote:

Ideally, as Unionist and others point out, fair remuneration for labour [b][i]would negate having customers pick up the slack in compensation[/b][/i] from the food and beverage industry.  For many people, an hour or so of sitting down in a restaurant constitutes a well earned treat from their own low paid existence.  The issue of tipping food and beverage workers is also of some significance for the minimum wage retail sector employee, the corporate chain convenience store clerk, gas station attendants, the shoe person at the bowling alley, the barber, the kid who delivers newspapers, drive through employees, etc.

Huh?

Today, if a meal costs $10 and the expected tip is, say, 15%, then you will pay $11.50 for the meal.  If tipping was banned and the restuarants had to pay a higher wage (to make up for the lost tips), then do you, for even a tiny instant, think that the restaurant wouldn't charge $11.50 for a tip-less meal??

There truly is no free lunch.

If the cost to the average patron would generally be the same in a tip versus tip-free environment, what tipping does is give a patron a say in the service (and gives the server an incentive to do well).  Who benefits from that?  Patrons.  And is the purpose of a restaurant to provide employment for servers or to provide service to patrons?

Yes, let's pin the problem on restaurant patrons. That is the easiest for now, and perhaps for always.

Gee, it's almost like this thread doesn't have five previous pages of discussion on this issue...!

Unionist wrote:

Sven wrote:

Today, if a meal costs $10 and the expected tip is, say, 15%, then you will pay $11.50 for the meal.  If tipping was banned and the restuarants had to pay a higher wage (to make up for the lost tips), then do you, for even a tiny instant, think that the restaurant wouldn't charge $11.50 for a tip-less meal??

Oh, so restaurant owners can charge whatever they want, without fear of losing customers to the competition. I'm surprised you can still get change from $100 at the local diner. FYI, it doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way, huh?  Let's say the company that I work for makes a medical device and we compete with two other companies who have a very similar device...and all three companies sell their devices for $10,000.  Then, the goverment imposes a medical device tax of 3.5%.  If one of the other companies increases their price to $10,350 (to pass the tax on to their customers), we'd almost certainly do the same (as would the third competitor).  If we were willing to hold our price at $10,000, while our competitors increase their prices to $10,350, in order to be more competitive, we probably would have dropped our price [u]before[/u] the new tax was implemented if we thought a price adjustment would have made competitive sense.  But, if a common tax is imposed on the status quo, competitors are likely pass that along to customers rather than suffer the cost themselves.

I've seen something similar with increased petrol prices.  We and our competitors, when petrol jumped to over $4 a gallon, started passing through fuel-surcharges to our customers.  And the customers ended up bearing the burden of the rise in petrol prices.

Same with sales taxes.  If the sale tax rate on retailers increases from 6% to 7%, you won't see retailers eating that extra 1%.  The customers will pay it.

I'm confident that the same thing would happen with restaurants if they were "taxed" with a requirement to increase wages and eliminate tipping.

Unionist wrote:

Quote:

And is the purpose of a restaurant to provide employment for servers or to provide service to patrons?

Well... neither.

Tthe [i]purpose[/i] of a restaurant - unless it's a charitable soup kitchen - is to allow the owners to make a living, maybe even a little extra (called profit). Absent that, it doesn't get established, and it doesn't carry on in business. Hiring staff and serving customers are a means to that end.

I disagree.  The purpose of a restaurant is not to make the owner money.  The purpose of the restauarant is to serve meals to patrons.  If that purpose fails, then all other objectives and interests will fail.  The ancillary result (hopefully) for the owner is to make a profit and, from the employees' perspective, to earn a wage.

Vancover requires 38k a year to live? You must have a huge amount of people below that

DP

Yes. I know people who work 2 jobs and some who work 3. They need to work more than one job to make ends meet. Tips included.