4 ms·

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

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 6y 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.
      - ruined 5y ago
        If you can demonstrate that happens, to the exclusion of other reasons, publish it. I haven't seen that effect or known anyone to see that effect during such a transition. What I have seen is a lot of bosses cutting wages and blaming everyone but themselves for turnover, and a lot of business owners with an ideological agenda making bad-faith arguments. The money is already there, and the current situation is that customers are literally giving most of it without obligation. It makes sense to formalize the relationship, and properly allocate responsibilities to the business owner. The entire debate is a deflection of responsibility for employee compensation.

ruined 6y 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.
    - ruined 5y ago
      If you can demonstrate that happens, to the exclusion of other reasons, publish it. I haven't seen that effect or known anyone to see that effect during such a transition. What I have seen is a lot of bosses cutting wages and blaming everyone but themselves for turnover, and a lot of business owners with an ideological agenda making bad-faith arguments. The money is already there, and the current situation is that customers are literally giving most of it without obligation. It makes sense to formalize the relationship, and properly allocate responsibilities to the business owner. The entire debate is a deflection of responsibility for employee compensation.