5 ms·

> In 1942, the Supreme Court ruled that employees had an exclusive right to their tips and that their employers could not force them to share their tips with ki

> In 1942, the Supreme Court ruled that employees had an exclusive right to their tips and that their employers could not force them to share their tips with kitchen staff. What happened to that? What I really can't stand about tipping is that most of the time it goes to some dumb "tip share" scheme. My wife (then GF) worked at several restaurants in college and they all had tip shares. Even hosts and kitchen staff were included in the share. They were all payed under minimum wage, but the restaurant had to pay the difference if the tips alone didn't bring their wages up to the minimum (which happened more often than not). I realized that when I tip, I'm usually not rewarding the waiter/waitress. That reward usually gets split across dozens of people and my waiter/waitress likely sees none of it. Worse still, most of the time it isn't even a bonus to their wage. The $5/hr-ish is effectively deducted from their tips so I'm just paying their wages so the restaurant doesn't have to. What a scam. Regardless what you think of tipping, tip shares should absolutely be illegal.

JackFr 6y ago
In my experience, the waiters tipped the bar staff and the busboys out of our own tips A our discretion. And in general the bar staff did a good job, but they absolutely knew which waiters tipped well and which tipped poorly.
- Nursie 6y ago
  That seems absurd.
mbirth 6y ago
Also I've heard in some places, the amount to share is calculated from the overall tips. So if you had a bad evening and made less than your colleagues, you're actually paying part of the share out of your own pocket. But still, there seem to be lots of people willing to do these jobs.
- CivBase 6y ago
  > But still, there seem to be lots of people willing to do these jobs. You mean the students, fresh grads, and otherwise-unemployed who basically have no other choice? I'm not sure them being "willing to do these jobs" is a great defense for the practice considering their alternative.
tshaddox 6y ago
> I realized that when I tip, I'm usually not rewarding the waiter/waitress. That reward usually gets split across dozens of people and my waiter/waitress likely sees none of it. This seems...really good! I’d rather be able to tip the people who actually make the food and clean the table (things that matter!), than the person whose only responsibilities are carrying the food to the table and not saying annoying or obnoxious things. I couldn’t disagree more with you here.
- CivBase 6y ago
  You missed the point. They earn something like $4/hr + their portion of the tip share. If the tip share is not enough to bring their wage up to minimum ($7.25/hr in most cases), the employer must pay the difference. Tip share is almost never enough to make up the difference, so they earn minimum wage regardless of whether they're part of the "tip share". The waitstaff earns less with a "tip share" because their tips get deducted from in order to pay the other employees' minimum wages. Here's an example: say you have a restaurant with 2 waiters, 2 cooks, and 1 host. "Tip wage" is $4/hr and minimum wage is $7.25/hr. The waiters each bring in $7.50/hr in tips ($15/hr combined). Without tip share, waiters get $11.50/hr ($4/hr wage + $7.50/hr tips) while the cooks and host get $7.25/hr. With tip share, everyone gets $7.25/hr ($4/hr tip wage + $3/hr tips + $0.25/hr difference from the employer). It's just a scheme to fund wages for cooks and hosts using tips from the waitstaff.
  - xenihn 6y ago
    >They earn something like $4/hr + their portion of the tip share. You are posting this on Hacker News. Most of the people in this community live in states where waitstaff earn more than $4/hour base, thanks to state laws. Read the room.
    - CivBase 6y ago
      What are you talking about? It's less than $4/hr in most states. Only 15 states have tipping wages higher than that (out of 43 who have legal tipping wages). https://www.minimum-wage.org/tipped https://www.minimum-wage.org/tipped Only 2 of those states have a tip credit of less than $3/hr.
mrcrowqaw 6y ago
This is effectively a "minimum wage tax" in addition to the sales tax. Alternatively, it can be seen as a clever way to monetize guilt, by redirecting the staff's anger from the boss to the customer.
- dang 6y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

JackFr 6y ago

In my experience, the waiters tipped the bar staff and the busboys out of our own tips A our discretion. And in general the bar staff did a good job, but they absolutely knew which waiters tipped well and which tipped poorly.

Nursie 6y ago
That seems absurd.

mbirth 6y ago

Also I've heard in some places, the amount to share is calculated from the overall tips. So if you had a bad evening and made less than your colleagues, you're actually paying part of the share out of your own pocket. But still, there seem to be lots of people willing to do these jobs.

CivBase 6y ago
> But still, there seem to be lots of people willing to do these jobs. You mean the students, fresh grads, and otherwise-unemployed who basically have no other choice? I'm not sure them being "willing to do these jobs" is a great defense for the practice considering their alternative.

tshaddox 6y ago

> I realized that when I tip, I'm usually not rewarding the waiter/waitress. That reward usually gets split across dozens of people and my waiter/waitress likely sees none of it. This seems...really good! I’d rather be able to tip the people who actually make the food and clean the table (things that matter!), than the person whose only responsibilities are carrying the food to the table and not saying annoying or obnoxious things. I couldn’t disagree more with you here.

CivBase 6y ago
You missed the point. They earn something like $4/hr + their portion of the tip share. If the tip share is not enough to bring their wage up to minimum ($7.25/hr in most cases), the employer must pay the difference. Tip share is almost never enough to make up the difference, so they earn minimum wage regardless of whether they're part of the "tip share". The waitstaff earns less with a "tip share" because their tips get deducted from in order to pay the other employees' minimum wages. Here's an example: say you have a restaurant with 2 waiters, 2 cooks, and 1 host. "Tip wage" is $4/hr and minimum wage is $7.25/hr. The waiters each bring in $7.50/hr in tips ($15/hr combined). Without tip share, waiters get $11.50/hr ($4/hr wage + $7.50/hr tips) while the cooks and host get $7.25/hr. With tip share, everyone gets $7.25/hr ($4/hr tip wage + $3/hr tips + $0.25/hr difference from the employer). It's just a scheme to fund wages for cooks and hosts using tips from the waitstaff.
- xenihn 6y ago
  >They earn something like $4/hr + their portion of the tip share. You are posting this on Hacker News. Most of the people in this community live in states where waitstaff earn more than $4/hour base, thanks to state laws. Read the room.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    What are you talking about? It's less than $4/hr in most states. Only 15 states have tipping wages higher than that (out of 43 who have legal tipping wages). https://www.minimum-wage.org/tipped https://www.minimum-wage.org/tipped Only 2 of those states have a tip credit of less than $3/hr.

mrcrowqaw 6y ago

This is effectively a "minimum wage tax" in addition to the sales tax. Alternatively, it can be seen as a clever way to monetize guilt, by redirecting the staff's anger from the boss to the customer.

dang 6y ago
Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...