5 ms·

Again I am puzzled how this does not count as fraud - a felony with a jail term measured in years. And no, re-defining 'tip' to mean whatever Amazon wants it t

by deogeo 8y ago

Again I am puzzled how this does not count as fraud - a felony with a jail term measured in years. And no, re-defining 'tip' to mean whatever Amazon wants it to mean somewhere in the Terms of Service fine print does not absolve them.

doctorpangloss 8y ago
In the food service industry, for example, your tips almost always reduce base pay until a federal, legal minimum different from the better known minimum wage. I’m not saying that’s just. Companies abuse service workers, and use some legalistic convention to do so. Would you go suing basically every restaurant for fraud though? Justice here really means legislating the wages and tips laws to be more generous to workers.
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  That's not how it works. They get a base pay without considering tips. If they get tips they get more. They don't get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed their pay, otherwise why would anyone bother to work harder for the tips if they just get the same amount?
  - benmanns 8y ago
    This is exactly how it works. You get minimum wage. If you get tips, your wage can be reduced to the tipped employee minimum wage of some $2 per hour. Usually $2 plus your tips put you over minimum wage, but not always.
  - beatpanda 8y ago
    It depends on the state. Lots and lots of states have tipped wage laws that allow an employer to count tips toward base pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    That's exactly how it works. For example in West Virginia, you get paid either 8.50 or 2.62 plus your tips, whichever is more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
    - colechristensen 8y ago
      A few successful waitresses I've known earned 2-4x minimum wage with tips and fought hard against proposed local laws that would cancel that "tips count towards minimum wage" concept on the grounds that restaurants couldn't afford it.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        Yet restaurants do quite well in the seven states that ban this shady practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States#State_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...
  - vkou 8y ago
    Only in states that explicitly permit tip theft (by having a ludicriously low minimum wage for tipped staff). In other states/countries, this practice is highly illegal.
  - subculture 8y ago
    These stories with Amazon, Postmates, etc are getting traction because they're tech companies. At least now more people are realizing that this practice is in addition to existing abuses against service workers.
    - d4rti 8y ago
      They are also a better target for action than a single restaurant or small service business because of the vastly larger number of workers.
  - schrodinger 8y ago
    You’re wrong! That’s how it works! Service workers get a Lowe minimum wage with the expectation it’ll be made up for with tips. If it doesn’t, the employer must top them up.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > They don't get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed their pay, otherwise why would anyone bother to work harder for the tips if they just get the same amount? Yes, they do get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed the base pay. It's structured like so: 1. The state minimum wage is, say, $8. 2. The state minimum wage for tipped workers is much lower, say $2. 3. But the minimum wage for tipped workers doesn't exempt you, the employer, from paying the overall minimum wage. If someone is so terrible at their job that they only make $1 / hour in tips, then you have to pay them $7 / hour so they end up making minimum wage. But you can describe the exact same pay schedule differently: 1. The minimum wage is $8 / hour, and that's what waiters make. 2. But for tipped workers, up to $6 / hour of tips can be garnished by the employer. As you can see, your first $6 / hour of tips do nothing but reduce your base pay. Whatever you get tipped above that amount is yours to keep.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      As you can see, your first $6 / hour of tips do nothing but reduce your base pay. Whatever you get tipped above that amount is yours to keep. You had it right the first time, but the first $6/hour of tips do not reduce your base pay, and are not considered garnishments since you are guaranteed a minimum no matter what. (And "garnish" does have a legal meaning in this context so that's definitely the wrong word to use here.) It should be contextualized another way: the first $6/hour of tips offset the make-good wages the restaurant would have to pay if you hadn't earned those tips.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        What do you mean "the first time"? The amount of money you get is the same. The two scenarios are worded differently without being different. Except for the joy of financial engineering, there is no difference between "you make $8 / hour, and the first $6 / hour of your tips go to me instead of you" and "you make $8 / hour, and whatever tips you get are yours to keep, but the first $6 / hour of your tips lower your base wage by an equal amount". But you must conceive of it as either garnishing tips or eating into the base pay, because if you work one hour and get tipped $20, you only earn $22. If your tips weren't being garnished and also didn't reduce your base pay, you'd earn $28.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- azinman2 8y ago
  Basically it means that the minimum wage can be lower. But few industries (none outside food service?) work this way. Certainly this isn’t the expectation of consumers of these delivery apps that it might work that way. It even says in pretty much all of them “100% of the tip goes to the driver,” further setting up the expectation that this is in addition to base pay... not subsidizing it. Either we need cultural and policy acceptance of the Instacart/Amazon model of subsidizing pay, or they need to change their behavior (which feels far more fair given the employer size). It’s not like the majority of delivery apps are mom & pop — they’re billion-dollar corporations or multi-million dollar startups backed by big VC money. Cutting costs on the backs of your dynamic and more economically vulnerable labor force feels cheap and immoral.
  - doctorpangloss 8y ago
    > But few industries (none outside food service?) work this way. I guess apparently Amazon, DoorDash, and Instacart do! > 100% of the tip goes to the driver. That's verbatim what happened! They just omitted the additional fact that they would decrease the base pay, like in the food industry. > Cutting costs on the backs of your dynamic and more economically vulnerable labor force feels cheap and immoral. Sure is! But restaurants do that too! The difference is, a rich, single, 35+ year old male programmer can be righteous about Instacart. I mean, they don't cook for themselves, they don't tip their Amazon drivers (they didn't know you can do that!), they eat out, so who cares if the tips are taken away. But virtue taking away your right to pay $50 for a dinner-for-one at Burma Love? Fuck that, they say. They're hungry.
    - justinpombrio 8y ago
      > That's verbatim what happened! I call BS. Money is fungible, so "of the $10 we gave the driver, $5 was from you and $5 was from us" doesn't mean anything outside of the stories we tell. All that happened in terms of bank transactions was that you gave Amazon $5, and Amazon gave the driver $10. That said, there is a good way to tell whether they're getting your tip or not. Ask how much more money the specific driver you tipped received than if you hadn't tipped. That's right, $0. (On the other hand, I bet if you tipped more than the base pay, the driver would get that much. So big enough tips probably make a difference.) Though what really matters is what the courts say :-).
- Buge 8y ago
  I think it boils down to "how does the company advertise pay to the employee?" Those restaurants are not advertising minimum wage + tips, or even just minimum wage. They're advertising $4 + tips. Amazon should similarly advertise whatever it's guaranteed to pay itself + tips. Then it's transparent and there's no confusion.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  Wouldn't there be public support for laws simply saying "minimum wage is the minimum base pay and tips can never be 'deducted' to lessen the wages an employer has to pay to a service worker"?
thatoneuser 8y ago
I love when stories like this come in and you see everyone defending the company because they redefined terms that obviously mean a certain thing. Part of the reason tech giants are so big is they do all these things that would be illegal for me and you, but they get a pass.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Eridrus 8y ago
In the long run, without any wage theft, you should expect any increase in tips lead to a reduction in base pay since employees only really care about their total comp, not whether it comes from tips of salary. So while this practice is scummy, it's basically just speeding up what would happen normally.
- jonny_eh 8y ago
  Another good reason to abolish tipping entirely.

by deogeo 8y ago

doctorpangloss 8y ago

In the food service industry, for example, your tips almost always reduce base pay until a federal, legal minimum different from the better known minimum wage. I’m not saying that’s just. Companies abuse service workers, and use some legalistic convention to do so. Would you go suing basically every restaurant for fraud though? Justice here really means legislating the wages and tips laws to be more generous to workers.

thatoneuser 8y ago
That's not how it works. They get a base pay without considering tips. If they get tips they get more. They don't get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed their pay, otherwise why would anyone bother to work harder for the tips if they just get the same amount?
- benmanns 8y ago
  This is exactly how it works. You get minimum wage. If you get tips, your wage can be reduced to the tipped employee minimum wage of some $2 per hour. Usually $2 plus your tips put you over minimum wage, but not always.
- beatpanda 8y ago
  It depends on the state. Lots and lots of states have tipped wage laws that allow an employer to count tips toward base pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  That's exactly how it works. For example in West Virginia, you get paid either 8.50 or 2.62 plus your tips, whichever is more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    A few successful waitresses I've known earned 2-4x minimum wage with tips and fought hard against proposed local laws that would cancel that "tips count towards minimum wage" concept on the grounds that restaurants couldn't afford it.
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      Yet restaurants do quite well in the seven states that ban this shady practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States#State_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_Stat...
- vkou 8y ago
  Only in states that explicitly permit tip theft (by having a ludicriously low minimum wage for tipped staff). In other states/countries, this practice is highly illegal.
- subculture 8y ago
  These stories with Amazon, Postmates, etc are getting traction because they're tech companies. At least now more people are realizing that this practice is in addition to existing abuses against service workers.
  - d4rti 8y ago
    They are also a better target for action than a single restaurant or small service business because of the vastly larger number of workers.
- schrodinger 8y ago
  You’re wrong! That’s how it works! Service workers get a Lowe minimum wage with the expectation it’ll be made up for with tips. If it doesn’t, the employer must top them up.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > They don't get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed their pay, otherwise why would anyone bother to work harder for the tips if they just get the same amount? Yes, they do get a base pay that gets eaten away by tips until the tips exceed the base pay. It's structured like so: 1. The state minimum wage is, say, $8. 2. The state minimum wage for tipped workers is much lower, say $2. 3. But the minimum wage for tipped workers doesn't exempt you, the employer, from paying the overall minimum wage. If someone is so terrible at their job that they only make $1 / hour in tips, then you have to pay them $7 / hour so they end up making minimum wage. But you can describe the exact same pay schedule differently: 1. The minimum wage is $8 / hour, and that's what waiters make. 2. But for tipped workers, up to $6 / hour of tips can be garnished by the employer. As you can see, your first $6 / hour of tips do nothing but reduce your base pay. Whatever you get tipped above that amount is yours to keep.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    As you can see, your first $6 / hour of tips do nothing but reduce your base pay. Whatever you get tipped above that amount is yours to keep. You had it right the first time, but the first $6/hour of tips do not reduce your base pay, and are not considered garnishments since you are guaranteed a minimum no matter what. (And "garnish" does have a legal meaning in this context so that's definitely the wrong word to use here.) It should be contextualized another way: the first $6/hour of tips offset the make-good wages the restaurant would have to pay if you hadn't earned those tips.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      What do you mean "the first time"? The amount of money you get is the same. The two scenarios are worded differently without being different. Except for the joy of financial engineering, there is no difference between "you make $8 / hour, and the first $6 / hour of your tips go to me instead of you" and "you make $8 / hour, and whatever tips you get are yours to keep, but the first $6 / hour of your tips lower your base wage by an equal amount". But you must conceive of it as either garnishing tips or eating into the base pay, because if you work one hour and get tipped $20, you only earn $22. If your tips weren't being garnished and also didn't reduce your base pay, you'd earn $28.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
azinman2 8y ago
Basically it means that the minimum wage can be lower. But few industries (none outside food service?) work this way. Certainly this isn’t the expectation of consumers of these delivery apps that it might work that way. It even says in pretty much all of them “100% of the tip goes to the driver,” further setting up the expectation that this is in addition to base pay... not subsidizing it. Either we need cultural and policy acceptance of the Instacart/Amazon model of subsidizing pay, or they need to change their behavior (which feels far more fair given the employer size). It’s not like the majority of delivery apps are mom & pop — they’re billion-dollar corporations or multi-million dollar startups backed by big VC money. Cutting costs on the backs of your dynamic and more economically vulnerable labor force feels cheap and immoral.
- doctorpangloss 8y ago
  > But few industries (none outside food service?) work this way. I guess apparently Amazon, DoorDash, and Instacart do! > 100% of the tip goes to the driver. That's verbatim what happened! They just omitted the additional fact that they would decrease the base pay, like in the food industry. > Cutting costs on the backs of your dynamic and more economically vulnerable labor force feels cheap and immoral. Sure is! But restaurants do that too! The difference is, a rich, single, 35+ year old male programmer can be righteous about Instacart. I mean, they don't cook for themselves, they don't tip their Amazon drivers (they didn't know you can do that!), they eat out, so who cares if the tips are taken away. But virtue taking away your right to pay $50 for a dinner-for-one at Burma Love? Fuck that, they say. They're hungry.
  - justinpombrio 8y ago
    > That's verbatim what happened! I call BS. Money is fungible, so "of the $10 we gave the driver, $5 was from you and $5 was from us" doesn't mean anything outside of the stories we tell. All that happened in terms of bank transactions was that you gave Amazon $5, and Amazon gave the driver $10. That said, there is a good way to tell whether they're getting your tip or not. Ask how much more money the specific driver you tipped received than if you hadn't tipped. That's right, $0. (On the other hand, I bet if you tipped more than the base pay, the driver would get that much. So big enough tips probably make a difference.) Though what really matters is what the courts say :-).
Buge 8y ago
I think it boils down to "how does the company advertise pay to the employee?" Those restaurants are not advertising minimum wage + tips, or even just minimum wage. They're advertising $4 + tips. Amazon should similarly advertise whatever it's guaranteed to pay itself + tips. Then it's transparent and there's no confusion.
alkonaut 8y ago
Wouldn't there be public support for laws simply saying "minimum wage is the minimum base pay and tips can never be 'deducted' to lessen the wages an employer has to pay to a service worker"?

thatoneuser 8y ago

I love when stories like this come in and you see everyone defending the company because they redefined terms that obviously mean a certain thing. Part of the reason tech giants are so big is they do all these things that would be illegal for me and you, but they get a pass.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Eridrus 8y ago

In the long run, without any wage theft, you should expect any increase in tips lead to a reduction in base pay since employees only really care about their total comp, not whether it comes from tips of salary. So while this practice is scummy, it's basically just speeding up what would happen normally.

jonny_eh 8y ago
Another good reason to abolish tipping entirely.