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Do workers who receive tips want it to go away? The friends I've known who worked jobs with tips seemed to think they would be paid less if tips were replaced w

Do workers who receive tips want it to go away? The friends I've known who worked jobs with tips seemed to think they would be paid less if tips were replaced with wage increases on the employer end; my understanding is that they made a significant amount of money in tips. Obviously this varies by individual, job, and establishment, though. There some restaurants that tried to go no-tipping, but I think it didn't work out for them because they had a hard time finding/retaining staff.

ruined 6y ago
everyone i know who has worked tipped and untipped service models preferred the untipped model for stability and the reduced interference of sadistic/irate/careless customers. in fact these people have been pretty instrumental in wider implementation as they have moved on to other work environments and advocated for that change. this is in a state that doesn’t count tips toward minimum wage. the largest harm of the tipping model is in states that do count tips towards minimum wage. the wage paid by employer may be under $3/h and the employee mostly survives off tips. this means that tips are only subsidizing the employer, because an increase in tips is matched by a deduction in the wage paid by the employer, to a limit. there are some rare instances, mostly luxury dining, where tips can far outpace typical restaurant wages. in this context the employer can afford to massively increase wages. there have been arguments made that these tips pay for the quality of service, but there is no reason this incentive and expectation can’t come from the employer directly, and it would remove the uncertainty of irresponsible customers failing to tip. in all contexts, switching from tips to a real wage has many benefits to the employee when wages are adjusted properly, no detriments to the customer, and only harms businesses that are currently exploitative and doing harm.
- mannerheim 6y ago
  If that were the case, then why did restaurants that switched to no-tipping models see the departure of much of their staff? [0] I would have expected servers to flock to those, but by the sound of it, tipping is reliable enough that servers can leave and go to a restaurant with tips and earn more money. > “Andrew was very disappointed,” says an employee of Tarlow’s restaurant group, Marlow Collective, who asked to remain anonymous. “But when we went to non-tipping, we pretty much lost our entire staff that had been there for ten years. He wanted to make it work, but it just became really difficult.” > ... > But, it turned out, many front-of-house staffers were more concerned with making money than with maintaining the moral high ground. This February, Meyer admitted that he had lost 30 to 40 percent of his “legacy” staffers since 2015. (One Meyer employee told Grub last year that her wages dropped from $60,000 per year to $50,000 under the new policy.) > ... > Without widespread buy-in from other restaurants, it’s just too easy for front-of-house workers to leave to make more money elsewhere. “About 40 percent of our servers were like, ‘Hey, this is awesome, but I’m going to go to State Bird Provisions, where I can make 10 percent more,’” Vogler says. “And who doesn’t want to make 10 percent more? They’re not freedom fighters.” To be sure, maybe they didn't do a good job implementing it. But the cases I've read about restaurants switching to no-tipping usually seem to run into problems with servers being able to earn more money with tips than without them. I think perhaps part of the problem is that a uniform increase in prices will make people who would have tipped poorly decide not to go, and people who would have tipped generously now pay less. So before with the tipping model, the well-tippers were in effect subsidising the poor-tippers, but now the poor-tippers are gone so there is overall less revenue for the business and servers. But another issue is that they took some of the income earned from the higher prices and gave it to the kitchen staff, which would have been money that would have been available for the waitstaff. [0]: https://www.grubstreet.com/2018/12/restaurant-tipping-returns.html https://www.grubstreet.com/2018/12/restaurant-tipping-return...
  - ruined 5y ago
    of course you'll see staff leave if you cut pay. that's a deliberate choice by management, and not a question about tipped or untipped work. i doubt there is real effect on the orders that customers place, but nobody's publishing their books, so who can say. in a systemic change in which every restaurant transitions to an untipped system, there would be no concern about losing out to a restaurant that continues to lower prices by exploiting servers.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      Is it a deliberate choice by management, or an economic reality? Perhaps they could have kept kitchen staff wages low and used the extra money to pay waitstaff more, but since it seems like other restaurants that adopted no-tipping eventually switched back to tips, it sounds like there just isn't the money to go around. Sure, if every restaurant switched to no-tipping, then waitstaff couldn't simply switch to a restaurant that did tips. But I would suspect they would make less money overall. Are restaurants without tipping losing out to a restaurant that is 'exploiting' servers if servers are choosing switch to that restaurant rather than stick with the restaurant with the 'non-exploitative' no-tipping model? I cannot see the logic in that. Are you saying servers who leave a no-tipping restaurant for a tipping restaurant are choosing to be exploited?
      - ruined 5y ago
        what? all that is required in the transition to fully-waged labor is to pay an equivalent wage to the former wage+tips. if management pays a lower wage, that is a choice, because management has full control over what they rate hourly and what they write on the check. if the concern is that workers may be paid less, the solution is simply don't pay less.
        mannerheim 5y ago
        It would be difficult to pay an equivalent wage if after transitioning to no-tipping the restaurant is making less money than it did before.
refurb 6y ago
That was my experience as well. Tips can often outstrip your hourly wage on good nights. If the choice was $10/hr + tips or $15/hr, I’d take the tips.

ruined 6y ago

everyone i know who has worked tipped and untipped service models preferred the untipped model for stability and the reduced interference of sadistic/irate/careless customers. in fact these people have been pretty instrumental in wider implementation as they have moved on to other work environments and advocated for that change. this is in a state that doesn’t count tips toward minimum wage. the largest harm of the tipping model is in states that do count tips towards minimum wage. the wage paid by employer may be under $3/h and the employee mostly survives off tips. this means that tips are only subsidizing the employer, because an increase in tips is matched by a deduction in the wage paid by the employer, to a limit. there are some rare instances, mostly luxury dining, where tips can far outpace typical restaurant wages. in this context the employer can afford to massively increase wages. there have been arguments made that these tips pay for the quality of service, but there is no reason this incentive and expectation can’t come from the employer directly, and it would remove the uncertainty of irresponsible customers failing to tip. in all contexts, switching from tips to a real wage has many benefits to the employee when wages are adjusted properly, no detriments to the customer, and only harms businesses that are currently exploitative and doing harm.

mannerheim 6y ago
If that were the case, then why did restaurants that switched to no-tipping models see the departure of much of their staff? [0] I would have expected servers to flock to those, but by the sound of it, tipping is reliable enough that servers can leave and go to a restaurant with tips and earn more money. > “Andrew was very disappointed,” says an employee of Tarlow’s restaurant group, Marlow Collective, who asked to remain anonymous. “But when we went to non-tipping, we pretty much lost our entire staff that had been there for ten years. He wanted to make it work, but it just became really difficult.” > ... > But, it turned out, many front-of-house staffers were more concerned with making money than with maintaining the moral high ground. This February, Meyer admitted that he had lost 30 to 40 percent of his “legacy” staffers since 2015. (One Meyer employee told Grub last year that her wages dropped from $60,000 per year to $50,000 under the new policy.) > ... > Without widespread buy-in from other restaurants, it’s just too easy for front-of-house workers to leave to make more money elsewhere. “About 40 percent of our servers were like, ‘Hey, this is awesome, but I’m going to go to State Bird Provisions, where I can make 10 percent more,’” Vogler says. “And who doesn’t want to make 10 percent more? They’re not freedom fighters.” To be sure, maybe they didn't do a good job implementing it. But the cases I've read about restaurants switching to no-tipping usually seem to run into problems with servers being able to earn more money with tips than without them. I think perhaps part of the problem is that a uniform increase in prices will make people who would have tipped poorly decide not to go, and people who would have tipped generously now pay less. So before with the tipping model, the well-tippers were in effect subsidising the poor-tippers, but now the poor-tippers are gone so there is overall less revenue for the business and servers. But another issue is that they took some of the income earned from the higher prices and gave it to the kitchen staff, which would have been money that would have been available for the waitstaff. [0]: https://www.grubstreet.com/2018/12/restaurant-tipping-returns.html https://www.grubstreet.com/2018/12/restaurant-tipping-return...
- ruined 5y ago
  of course you'll see staff leave if you cut pay. that's a deliberate choice by management, and not a question about tipped or untipped work. i doubt there is real effect on the orders that customers place, but nobody's publishing their books, so who can say. in a systemic change in which every restaurant transitions to an untipped system, there would be no concern about losing out to a restaurant that continues to lower prices by exploiting servers.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Is it a deliberate choice by management, or an economic reality? Perhaps they could have kept kitchen staff wages low and used the extra money to pay waitstaff more, but since it seems like other restaurants that adopted no-tipping eventually switched back to tips, it sounds like there just isn't the money to go around. Sure, if every restaurant switched to no-tipping, then waitstaff couldn't simply switch to a restaurant that did tips. But I would suspect they would make less money overall. Are restaurants without tipping losing out to a restaurant that is 'exploiting' servers if servers are choosing switch to that restaurant rather than stick with the restaurant with the 'non-exploitative' no-tipping model? I cannot see the logic in that. Are you saying servers who leave a no-tipping restaurant for a tipping restaurant are choosing to be exploited?
    - ruined 5y ago
      what? all that is required in the transition to fully-waged labor is to pay an equivalent wage to the former wage+tips. if management pays a lower wage, that is a choice, because management has full control over what they rate hourly and what they write on the check. if the concern is that workers may be paid less, the solution is simply don't pay less.
      - mannerheim 5y ago
        It would be difficult to pay an equivalent wage if after transitioning to no-tipping the restaurant is making less money than it did before.

refurb 6y ago

That was my experience as well. Tips can often outstrip your hourly wage on good nights. If the choice was $10/hr + tips or $15/hr, I’d take the tips.