4 ms·
Tipping only exists because of racism. (Look it up). It was a way for employers to pay far less than a livable wage—if any wage at all—and get away with it afte
by ttfkam 3y ago
Tipping only exists because of racism. (Look it up). It was a way for employers to pay far less than a livable wage—if any wage at all—and get away with it after the 13th Amendment was passed. Then it became institutionalized where anyone in the service industry could be grossly underpaid as long as their employees can collect tips.
And as usual most folks are pissed at the audacity of people, making far less than could ever afford a home and paying more than half their wages to rent, asking for just a little more.
Y'all are angry at the wrong people.
Don't like all the tipping jars popping up? Act like almost EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD and abolish tipping. Make the employers—ALL EMPLOYERS—pay their workers a full wage instead of passing the buck to the good will of individual patrons. Then Americans wouldn't get the side eye whenever we try to tip when visiting a civilized country.
"Service est compris."
After all, we already do it for "parties of six or more." Just reduce that number to one, raise the prices 15% in those sectors, and pay for the damn labor.
- euroderf 3y agoMy gut feeling is to agree with you - abolish tipping. But I can see another side. When you run a service business, you should be overstaffed sometimes in order to be ready for busier periods. During those slow periods, there's not enough to keep staff busy and neither is there much revenue coming in. But during busy periods, tips raise staff compensation to match staff effort expended. So maybe institutionalize the tips? Just add them to the bill? Or... here's a radical idea... just incorporate them into prices AND then ban tipping ? Just make sure they actually go to staff, or else the owner spends a few nights in jail.
- ttfkam 3y ago> Or... here's a radical idea... Your radical idea is to restate what I just said?
- euroderf 3y ago> Make the employers—ALL EMPLOYERS—pay their workers a full wage Not in my version. > After all, we already do it for "parties of six or more." Just reduce that number to one, raise the prices 15% in those sectors, and pay for the damn labor. You forgot the part where it has to guaranteed go to the workers. There have been big lawsuits about just this issue.
- ttfkam 3y agoI did not forget that. Our tax code and wage laws have tiers for tip wage workers and non-tip wage workers. It was presumed that if you remove that carve out by abolishing tips, the part you mention would follow. As for wage theft by employers, that is indeed a major issue already for both tip and non-tip workers. Why would anyone assume that problem would go away regardless of the existence of tipping? I'm all for punishing wage theft aggressively, though that is a separate issue entirely.
- euroderf 3y agoI wouldn't assume that wage theft would go away. It's just that the issue is a lot more severe when the base pay is sub-minimum.
- the_optimist 3y agoYou seem to believe that having one party or the other party to a transaction “pay” changes the overall cost to provide the good or service. It does not. Would you further wish to make it illegal (pay a fine or go to jail) to pay “more” for services you like?
- Georgelemental 3y ago> Tipping only exists because of racism. What? Many countries have tipping, including ones that have never had any sort of racial caste system.
- ttfkam 3y agoCanada (for example) got it through proximity to US, which did have a racial caste system. (Not to say that Canada doesn't have its own mixed history with racial issues, but that's another conversation.)