A related topic might be all the people suffering the same theft while working for much smaller players.
From there, it moves pretty rapidly to, "get rid of tips and pay a wage that funds people existing reasonably and showing up for work" rather than start a fairly expensive and difficult enforcement effort.
Maybe the idea of just avoiding all this mess to prevent what did happen, and what is happening to a ton of people is popular because it is relevant?
I agree that of all developed countries, tipping is most prevalent in the USA, but as a fellow Canadian I wouldn't assume our Amazon delivery people are being paid anymore. They are independent contractors and not subject to minimum wage laws. If anything, their effective wage might be lower because vehicle operating expenses are higher in Canada.
I understand that part, I don't understand the part where people find it acceptable to tip the delivery person. It's just not ok, unless they brought your fridge up the stairs or something then sure, I'll slip in a little something for the effort. But an amazon delivery driver? Where they drop the parcel at my door, ring the doorbell and leave? Why would I ever tip them? The same with food delivery drivers - I open the door, say "hi" grab the food and they are gone. There is nothing there to tip for.
Also a Canadian, Ontario. I didn't think to tip delivery, but my girlfriend at the time would include a tip when putting cash on the table for when it arrived. My mother's friend tips at Tim Horton's drive thru. So it likely varies a lot between various demographics
The hassle is that even if a place charges more for food, you don't know if they pay their service better. So if you're going to support the "no tips" agenda you'll have to put in the additional effort of looking up wages to decide Starbucks is better than Tim Horton's
" So if you're going to support the "no tips" agenda you'll have to put in the additional effort of looking up wages to decide Starbucks is better than Tim Horton's"
I just....don't see why. I honestly don't get an argument why. When you get a plumber do you check how much they earn per hour and decide accordingly?
Like seriously, it's the biggest scam the restaurant industry has managed to pull off - they are making customers a) worry about this stuff at all, even though you wouldn't for pretty much any other industry b) make them feel bad for not tipping if the company pays poorly. That's incredible. And it's so incredibly condescending towards the workers too "oh you poor slave, you are paid so little, I'll give you some extra cash so you can actually live like a normal human being". There's probably some kind of syndrome that fits this situation.
Sure, but reality is that minimum wage laws exclude waiter positions on the basis of tipping. So if you're anti tipping you should at least make sure you're avoiding places paying less than minimum wage. & you can't know just by looking at the menu
I worked ice cream vending (https://serprex.github.io/w/Ice%20Cream%20Biker if someone wants to read a very dry recount of my first day) where half my income was from tips. The prices of the items were generally like 2.75 to encourage getting me the extra quarter. It's a weird way that the business can leverage advertising a lower price while allowing tips to average out to cover a shitty wage
>>So if you're anti tipping you should at least make sure you're avoiding places paying less than minimum wage. & you can't know just by looking at the menu
But....why should I care about this as a customer at all. Again, I'm baffled how did the responsibility for the wellbeing and income of restaurant workers has been shifted to the customers. The employer should be responsible, not me. It literally doesn't work like this anywhere else. As a customer I also don't check if there are rats in the kitchen or if the chef is pouring grease into storm drains, yet I'm expected to be responsible for the salary of employees?
"After several months working at Café Linnea, he also found he was making less money than if he were receiving tips.
"I think that the wage ended up working out to be like ... an average of what one might expect to make on a slow night, but it didn't adequately make up for the busy nights.""
So sure, people who benefit from the broken system complain if it's being changed. What a surprise. Of course people who happen to make really good money on tips will complain about removal of tips. Shocker.
Somehow elsewhere in the world tips are just not expected and restaurants still manage to hire and retain staff.
Another quote:
"Fox said the no-tipping policy meant management couldn't end up sending servers home early on slow nights."
And....? How is this given as a downside?
And another:
""My employer paid for less than half of my total earnings," he said. "Most of the burden of my earnings was on the customer and thus didn't have to be reflected in prices."
Café Linnea never increased prices enough to make up for the higher staff wages, he said."
Like, I could have told you the outcome of this "experiment" before they even started.
Amazon Prime Now has a 'tip' section with a recommended amount of money to give the driver. It works out to about 10% of the price, I think, generally?
I think it's paramount that anyone using Prime Now sets this value to 0% in the app when ordering. Otherwise you're just subsidizing one of the wealthiest companies in the world. If you really want to give the delivery person a tip for whatever reason(they had to walk through mud to get to you) then give them cash. Don't pre-tip in the stupid app that clearly shows amazon "well, we don't need to pay well since clearly our customers are happy to compensate".
And jesus, if this is not late capitalism then I’m not sure what is. Through the phenomenon of tipping everyone becomes a Caeser-like philanthropist, making life or death choices based on the perceived suffering and performance of their precarious underlings. Meaning waiters, and other service industry workers, compete for crumbs by trying to make other people feel like "the golden child of their day", in a system that systemically undervalues and underpays them (that's putting it very lightly).
David Graeber has a great name for service workers, he calls them 'the caring classes'. [1]
In another article he writes about the British working class:
"In other words, the historical defeat and humiliation of the British working classes is now the island’s primary export product. By organizing the entire economy around the resultant housing bubble, the Tories have ensured that the bulk of the British population is aware" [2]
In a talk he gave he says despite technology increasing the productivity and therefore some wages, "in the caring sector the exact opposite has happened. Digitization is being used as an excuse to make lower productivity so as to justify the existence of this army of administrators" [3], in Britain this has created a "cheerful, creative, and subservient working-class population who, drawing on centuries of tradition, know exactly how to be butlers" [2]
Why not both? Many people would still want to be able to tip for good service even if the employees are paid adequately by their employer, and most of those customers expect the employer to not touch that money at all.
I find the people US society deems it necessary to tip to for service to be arbitrary and jarring. It’s kind of, sort of people you feel sorry for since they don’t earn much, but only if you interact with them, but even then sometimes not?
Janitors and custodians making sure everything is clean? No tip.
Person that brings you food? Tip.
Nurse/plumber/electrician/Government employee? No tip.
Delivery driver? Tip.
Grocery/hardware store/department store employee who helps you find what you need? No tip.
Person who brings out your online order to your car? Tip.
EMT that saves your life, but makes $12 per hour? No tip.
Do you tip your doctor? Plumber? Daycare provider? Cashier? Mechanic? Resturant employees when there is counter service? Hotel housekeeper? Physical therapist? Batista? Cook? Walmart greeter? Ferry crew? Person who sold your tickets? Person who checked your ticket? Usher? Travel agent? Real estate agent? Brewery employee? Winery employee? Tour guide? Hardware store employee who makes you a key? Can driver? Medicab driver? City bus driver? Tour bus driver? Shuttle bus driver? Pharmacist? Pharmacy assistant?
It's extremely arbitrary which service employees "get" tips and which do not. Not everyone agrees who society "expects" to be tipped. The whole thing is absurd and profoundly unfair.
There's no obligation to tip. It's not theft. It's only considered to be a loss of money due to the taxman responding to a lack of reporting over tips.
