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Back in December, we reported on the Trump administration's proposed changes to tip-pooling regulations that would allow employers to pocket servers' tips as long as the employees continue to make minimum wage. That's right: Employers could take servers' tips and just dole out the minimum wage. But wait, it gets worse!
Turns out, the Department Of Labor knew how crappy this would make life for restaurant employees. This Bloomberg Law article, citing sources within the agency, reveals that the Department Of Labor knowingly buried its own data that showed restaurant workers would lose billions of dollars in gratuities under the new proposal.
Source: https://thetakeout.com/proposed-tip-pooling-law-is-so-bad-for-workers-the-gove-1822664111
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:09PM (3 children)
Well, they should all quit and go on strike, and by strike, I mean the kind we haven't seen in 100 years. That's just me though.
Fuck the greedy employers as usual. I never tip off my card, and I always *hand deliver* the tip to my waiter. That way they can discreetly palm it and hide it in their pockets or something.
Seriously, fuck these employers. Did they think I was actually tipping them? That I was grateful for their overly expensive and caustic existence within the meat grinder? Why I would tip these fucking hell bound monsters more than what my meal cost? The deserve nothing but fire.
I tip not because I'm appreciative of good service. I tip because I realize that's the only way my server survives. It's ME that has make up the difference between a living wage and what those shitstains in management wage-steal from them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)
I always tip in cash as well *because* I know that servers are paid far less *because* they get tips.
And once you put the tip on a credit/debit card, you need to rely on the restaurant owner doing the honest thing and passing those tips along to the people they are already underpaying. That's a recipe for theft of wages (which is what tips are considered and how they are taxed).
What's more, IIUC servers are assessed taxes that assume they are making (including tips) at least the federal (or local if that's higher) minimum wage. When restaurant owners steal the tips from their employees, they are penalized twice -- once when they don't get their tips and again when they're assessed taxes on those same tips.
Pay people a living wage and this is no longer an issue.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:46PM
If this law sticks, doing that is probably going to become the norm for most. Hell, it's better to do that now, but most people don't. Restaurants make it super easy to put that tip on your card for a reason: if the tips collected don't add up to (non-waitstaff) minimum wage, the employer has to pay that difference, otherwise they only have to pay something like $2.50/hr. Meaning that it's in the server's best interest to take cash tips and withhold them, forcing the employer to pay something closer to a real minimum wage. It's not in the employer's interest to do that, of course, so it makes credit tipping as painless as possible to encourage it over cash, so that the customer ends up paying the employee instead.
Lately I've been doing some bartending for fun (it can be rough when it's busy, but still interesting work) and some extra cash, and frankly it's amazing how fucked up the service industry is with regard to shit like this. Luckily, I'm not having to deal with most of it, because it's a seasonal place that can't keep employees during off-season if it adheres to the idiotic wage rules, so I actually get paid a proper wage and any tips are just extra. Basically, it's how the position should be paid, and it cuts down on a lot (but not all, because some people get greedy) of the petty bullshit other people are complaining about. Do the job well because you're being paid to, and the tips are a nice bonus on top.
Of course, if tipping weren't a custom here, I'd have demanded even more pay for the job, because without it they still wouldn't be paying me enough to tolerate some of the bullshit the service industry deals with regularly. Even with tips, I've kicked people out for being complete cunts because I have enough self-respect that I'm not going to tolerate bullshit from someone regardless of tip potential. Most people are cool, but a small percentage treat employees at any job like shit because the employee can't just walk away, insult them, or hit them without risk of losing their job.
They're shitty to everybody, but it seems like they take it even farther with waitstaff, trying to use tips as a bribe to tolerate them being jackasses, and I think that behaviour will keep tipping around in the US even if the minimum wage shenanigans ever gets fixed. Even if most people are nice, it only takes a couple jerks to ruin someone's day, so tipping gives you an incentive to shrug it off and not let it affect your work. That's more of a problem for waitstaff, though; you don't get nearly as many surly people when you're supplying alcohol and some random chitchat. :)
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Kind of off-topic from the rest of this comment, but not worth making a new comment for:
Something else I realised with this job is that even without the minimum wage bullshit, tipping works out in the employer's favour because it encourages up-selling in a similar way to commission in sales jobs. You make more tips if you can figure out what a customer wants and sell them on it, which also leads to the employer making more money on sold goods. Maybe instead of tipping directly the industry should move toward a commission style of pay, which is essentially what it's currently emulating.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:48PM
I hope we can agree that not all restaurateurs are equally contemptible. I've eaten in many places that were pleasing in every sense of the word. I've met wait staff who loved their bosses. Granted, there are at least ten hell holes (without even considering fast food dumps) and incompetent managers for every place like I've described - but there are some really great restaurants, and restaurant managers. You've got to find them, though.