Excerpt from the article:
Schenker says that after his years in the service industry, he has watched tipping evolve into a major part of his pay.
“If there is some means of tipping that’s available to you, that should signal to you that workers there aren’t being paid enough,” says Schenker. “Tipping is sort of an acknowledgment of that fact.”
To Schenker, customers who don’t tip are not understanding that businesses treat tips as a baked-in part of workers’ wages.
“They subsidize lower prices by paying employees less,” he says. “If you aren’t tipping, you are taking advantage of that labor.”
He was so close… Especially for someone who says himself does not make much money.
People in the comments seem to think the barista likes supports tipping culture and resents customers who don’t tip, but that’s not the impression I get. He sympathizes with the awkwardness of the position and the tighter budgets people have, but nonetheless relies on tips for the meager amount they provide.
I hate tips as much as the next guy, but you should not protest by refusing to tip/undertipping in situations where there is a reasonable expectation of a tip. The only one who suffers in such a case is a low-wage worker. Rather, take your business somewhere without tips.
I think some of the issues people are having is that it’s not clear where there is a reasonable expectation to tip. Sit down restaurant, yes. Hair dresser, yes. Dunkin donuts? They just turned around and gave me something that was already made. Do I need to tip on that? A pickup order? It seems like yes, but when I get Uber eats, I’m only tipping the driver, and that’s still a pickup order. The convenience store where I bring everything I want up to the counter? Because the tipping prompt comes up there. I’m not sure where there is a reasonable expectation anymore and it’s making me feel less financially able to be generous overall.
A better way to protect would be to not use those services. It sucks for the employee but the only way to hurry the business is too not use it. Other is advocating for the minimum wage to go up but with our current Congress that’s important.
Customer pays for the wages of the server when he pays the bill period.
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As someone who used to live on tips that’s short sighted. The customer will always get the short end of the stick in this type of fight. If everyone refuses to give the employee 20% of the ticket then the business will charge the customer 40% of the ticket and give the employee 15%.
Blaming the customer for not tipping is the short sighted take. A business which can’t afford to pay its employees a livable wage doesn’t deserve to exist.
Yes but the argument here seems to be that these businesses that shouldn’t exist still have patrons in this thread refusing to tip. Refusing to tip in an institution where it’s already the system AND using their services IS the customer giving a big middle-finger to the service staff. If you don’t agree with tipping in general don’t use those services where people’s livelihoods are already tied to the expectation of a tip. Otherwise you are the asshole.
As is your right, still makes you an asshole though. Yeah, it’s fucked up workers aren’t paid enough but that IS the reality of the situation. Tipping at this point is like flushing the toilet - technically optional but not doing it is pretty shitty.
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That’s not true. I’ve heard accounts of early servers who only made money off of tips and were expected to pay the restaurant a portion of their tips for the privilege of serving there. In fact the only way to get service was to tip them beforehand and how much you tipped determined the level of service you received. This tip for good service is just a myth that is an excuse to avoid tipping.
With inflation happening across the economy, businesses have been dealing with rising costs for years. At the same time, there’s a lot of pressure to keep prices low for increasingly price-conscious customers.
Yup, pretty much.
A business is there to make money. Obviously, businesses that pay employees better have lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction. But what do you do if the price of keeping the lights on goes up? You can either increase prices, which will see fewer customers, but keep in mind that customers will just go to a coffee shop that’s cheaper. So the better option is to keep the prices the same and lower employee wages.
Business are feeling the pressure of our failing economy. Are some being jerks about it? You bet. I even worked for some. But I believe in a truly wealth-equal economy people are so well off jerk employers are just ignored.
But most people currently don’t have that choice. Quit an employer and you have a 50/50 chance of getting a job within a few weeks or ending up on the streets.
But I believe we can get to a more sustainable economy. It might take a lot of effort, but I believe we can get there!
I only get about $60 at a time. When my aunt takes me out to eat, I may have spent some of the money and also have some to spend after. I can’t really afford to tip.
spoiler
Then you can’t really afford to eat out because you’re robbing someone for their services…
Tipping is a way customers sponsoring greedy capitalist ability to pay below minimum wage.
In my country, people usually don’t tip. They only tip in some special service, such as sex workers.
Being tipped is a way to make vastly more than you would ordinarily make per hour.
You can always tell the people who haven’t worked for tips lol
I feel for this guy having to make a living with the meager pay of a barista, but setting the minimum wage to a livable level and pegging it to inflation is a much better solution. Hell, throw in some single-payer, universal healthcare, and take that item off everyone’s personal budget while we’re at it.
> throw in some single-payer, universal healthcare
When you do that, don’t forget to include coverage for the stuff around your head: dental care, eyeglasses and mental health. Many countries forgot to include coverage for these things and it is a shitshow.
selfawarewolves
What is going on with the comments here? Tipping is great for the worker. It allows me to sell my labor directly to consumers without the ownership class taking a cut as middleman.
Frankly, I have to reemphasize what the author said: Not tipping changes nothing for the owner; it only exploits the laborer.
Tips shouldn’t be the main source of income. It should be a bonus for good work. Tipping culture in the us is getting crazy compared to Europe. The base salary should be enough to be able to live on.
Sounds like you’re operating off how you think tipping should work, and not the organic system that’s actually in place.
Being paid by the consumer rather than the restaurant means my loyalty is to the consumer, not the restaurant. And that’s a good thing.
Right, and this is a place to talk about work reform.
Yeah, but “reform” has the connotation of “making things better” and also “working within the current system”. Scrapping a working system for the sake of ideological purity ain’t it.
And in the article, the barista mentioned not making more than $30,000 a year. If minimum wage were higher, around $15-$20 then the barista would make more than $30,000 a year with no awkward tipping moments. Sounds reform within the current system with no tipping and “scraping the whole system”. No please don’t complain that my latte cost more, that’s been a straw man since the beginning of minimum wage.
If your place of work has chosen to pay you so poorly that it’s now my fault that I’ve failed to supply you an adequate wage for your work in an industry where service is not a big component (the bakery employee bagging up some cookies for me is not getting a tip no matter how awkward their PoS system tries to make it - delivery drivers and waiters obviously are a different story) then I’m simply not supporting your employer and I genuinely hope others follow they go out of business, well aware that that fact is the reason they stopped getting customers.
You’re screwed one way or the other unfortunately, but I’d rather we send a clear message to the people actually responsible for this awful situation you’re stuck in where you have to rely on the generosity of customers to make a decent living, than continuing to subsidize their terrible business practices and allow this cycle of abuse to continue not only unabated, but actively financially supported. This can’t be the norm everywhere. Arguably it shouldn’t be the norm even in aforementioned businesses where it’s long been accepted as the norm already. You and I both know your idea of this being “selling labor directly without the ownership class taking a cut” is a falsehood, because their cut is coming from your base wages, while enabling customers to effectively ‘not pay’ for your labor, with nothing you can do to prevent that because you’re not in control of what you earn.
I would be 1000% in favor of people having that power to sell their labor directly and name their prices. But it’s this duplicitous system that doesn’t allow the laborer any control, while stealing from them, raising prices without the ability to be up-front and honest about what something is going to cost. The only reason you’re mad at customers and not your employer, is you feel you have the power to change one, and not the other.
It lets the owner continue to pay employees ahit wages because they don’t leave to get higher paying jobs elsewhere. It is an end run around their obligation to pay a fair wage by tugging at the heartstrings of people who buy into tipping as a solution to underpayment workers.
Servers deserve tips as long as they have the shitty exemption to minimum wage, but someone working the register at a convenience store or even a batista at a coffee shop doesn’t.
Do you tip underpaid janitors, cooks, delivery drivers, child care workers, cashiers at grocery stores, or fast food workers?
Yes, I tip baristi, delivery drivers, and fast food workers. And daycare teaxhers, and my garbage-pickers too.
So you say that you tip people you interact with, but not janitors, cooks, or workers at grocery stores.
Do you see how tipping is not a solution to low wages in general even if you think it helps the people you see and interact with?
A cogent point, but nobody is saying tipping is, or should be, a solution to low wages. Tipping in the restaurant industry is an evolved, organic things that fills a specific niche. I don’t think copy-pasting that onto other industries will help workers there; but I also don’t think copy-pasting the compensation system of other industries onto restaurants will help servers. I think it can only hurt us.
but nobody is saying tipping is, or should be, a solution to low wages.
The man being interviewed in the article is literally making this exact argument.
Having read the article, no, he isn’t. He’s saying that a tip interface is a sign that the employee is being underpaid, but multiple interviewees (the barista and the economist) note that tipping is an incentive that doesn’t fix the underpayment issue.
I’ve never worked a tip-driven job, but when talking with people who do, I’ve never met anyone working a tip-driven job who wanted tips to be gone or blamed the employer for it. It’s starting to feel to me like the people who are against tipping culture tend to be people who have never experienced it from the inside.
I don’t disagree that it’s an awkward setup, I don’t love the idea of it either. But I’ll take my cues from the people I’ve met who know better about it than I do. And it seems they seem to tend to agree with you.
I relied upon tips for ten years, and this is as clear as day to me: Tipping makes the customer a scapegoat.
This is a clear cut case of the (intentionally) adversarial relationship created between customer and employee being used to shield the root cause - the low paying employer.
If work were compensated appropriately, tipping would not be necessary. In order to get to that, we need the workers to assess blame appropriately.
Unfortunately, unless the workers are able to do that, they will continue to incorrectly blame customers for their inability to earn a living wage.
If you want to see this adversarial relationship in action - visit the forums where DoorDash drivers and customers discuss the issue.
The only way a customer can help to force the employers hand is to stop tipping - which will negatively impact those who rely upon tips before they turn on their low-paying employers. Only then will things change without a federal law mandating a thriving wage.
What job were you doing? I’m realizing I may have confirmation bias, because all the people I asked about it were in the restaurant / bar service industry, so my conclusions probably only apply there.
You mentioned DoorDash, and I’m realizing I never asked anybody who works for one of those “sharing economy” monsters. I can totally believe that for them, it’s more likely to be a wage escaping scheme, since wage escaping is, well, kinda their business model in the first place. Am I assuming right that you were working for one of those?
Thanks for that, it’s definitely helping me getting a fuller picture.
Nah fam. Your wage is between you and the employer. The cost of coffee, in this case, is between me and the owner. People should be paid a liveable wage off top and not need to ask the customer to cover your wage twice, once with paying for coffee and the second with the tip.
Ah the age old misconception…
Minimum wage is the minimum for everyone, by federal law. The employer can only pay less if wage + tips < minimum wage. And that shit is pretty heavily enforced… when reported.
Problem is, it’s in neither the employer nor the employee’s interests for you to know this; they both prefer blaming the customer.
There are other minimum wage jobs that are not tipped. Servers and stuff whose wage is the minimum should accept that minimum wage, ask for better pay, or fight for the minimum wage to be increased (for everyone), instead of trying to guilt trip the customers into paying them more.
Servers don’t typically blame the guests or have an adversarial attitude towards them. The ones that do don’t last. The bulk of any adversarial attitude, at every place I’ve worked in the two decades I’ve been waiting tables, is directed at management. Tables sometimes stiff us, but mgmt are the ones out here setting shitty schedules and commiting wage theft.
Since you are not able to set your own rate prior to settling the bill, you are not selling your labor to consumers at all. You are depending on the arbitrary mood of the consumer to possibly offset the insufficient wage your employer is paying you.
Except the rate IS set. Almost everyone knows what the going tip percentage is. I can manage my income just fine on this expectation, and consumers can manage their costs. The lack of a fee schedule and enforcement mechanism don’t change the mechanics of the interaction.
Except the rate IS set
Correct. The rate is 0% and it is up to the charity of the customer to do anything more since, as you say, there is a lack of an enforcement mechanism. I am happy you are able to manage your income on the expectation of tips, but many tipped workers are not in your enviable position.
I’ll reemphasize the point, I feel, other posts are making, but you might be to close to see it.
The burden of paying the laborer is 100% on the owner. The idea of making customers tip and saying “That’s how it is now and if you don’t tip you hurt the laborer” is a false statement. The burden is still on the owner. Period. When you keep stressing the system with underpaid workers and expect customers (who are also underpaid workers) to pay for that then it hurts EVERYONE.
You are explaining that it hurts the workers. I got it. It hurts EVERYONE because the owners are trying to move their burden to us.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, direct your blame at the correct groups. Having the customers and the staff mad at each other and blaming each other distracts from the actual cause of these frustrations.
I’m only mad at those who are trying to disrupt the system that lets me support a family of five on one income. There is ONE industry that’s figured out a way to make a living wage work for everybody and I think that’s worth defending.
Getting rid of tipping would mean higher prices for the consumer, worse service, lower pay for workers, and for what? Because the owners “should” be paying? Worse outcomes for the sake of an ideological nitpic.
Adam Ruins Everything explains it nicely; it really needs to be the responsibility of the business to pay their workforce. https://youtu.be/q_vivC7c_1k
If you are making enough to support a family of five then maybe I should switch careers. Damn.
For the record, I know the system is already in place and I tip accordingly. There appears to be an uptick on what I would consider unwarranted tips. If I’m coming in the pick up food, what service am I tipping? The front don’t share tips with the back. I only wanted work out of the back of the house.
This push for higher percentage tips is crazy too. I’ve seen 20%-30% range as a “normal” suggestion on the receipt…
No the system, that I spoke of earlier said 20% is for amazing super outstanding service. 10% is if they just show up and bring food. The range should be in-between that instead of trying to push the percentage higher and then producing opinion articles saying if you don’t tip then you are part of the problem. No the problem is still the owners. Always have been.
The entire history of tipping has roots in slavery. It’s also not as common most other places in the world. People in some countries would take great offense to being offered a tip, as it would suggest they’re needing extra help.
Tipping is not guaranteed income; yet “income,” is the entire purpose of having a job. If you go to work to earn $X as to be able to pay your bills and just have any standard of living at all, you need to have a certain minimum in order to continue meeting that standard.
We’ve passed too many business owner friendly laws in this country. The fact that “tipped employees” have a lower minimum wage is why business owners have been implementing payment systems that offer an option to tip. It’s the business owner NOT paying fair wages. They try to pass the responsibility off to customers.
Business owners that are doing this are taking advantage of everyone in the cycle. The only way to break the cycle is to break the system. Don’t tip unless you’re getting service where someone actually brings you something. Walking something up to the counter you’re standing at should not justify tipped wages.
It makes it optional whether or not to pay you for your labor, which works out to a “not an asshole tax” where nice customers subsidize both the business and people who don’t tip. It also creates artificial class divisions between service workers. Why is a barista getting a 15% bonus while a 7-11 clerk isn’t? (Hint: look at the demographics of each)
At a glance, this makes sense. As a worker, I get compensated for my work directly by the total of customers I serve.
In practice, however, tipping being optional means that there will always be people who tip less than is appropriate, or not at all. I would guess that it’s more likely for those undertippers to be people who are disconnected with the reality of being a service worker who depends on tips, e.g., people who are already wealthy. Which means that the livelihood of tipped workers depends more on less wealthy people (those who have an understanding of the position the service worker is in).
The effect here is that less wealthy customers pay more for their services, and more wealthy customers pay less. Yet another shifting of wealth from the poor to the rich.
Elimination of tipping brings this into a fairer (though still not completely fair) balance.
Tipping a barista while paying would almost always mean tipping BEFORE the service is rendered. This is not a tip, it is just an added fee.
They’re called tips because tips have certain legal protections, while fees are up to the discretion of the business to give to their employees. Trust me. That delivery fee that you pay Papa Johns goes toward liability insurance, software fees, and other incidentals. None of it goes to the driver. And always pre tip more than 5 dollars if you don’t want to be the last delivery of 3.
True but other than sit down restaurants where do you tip after the service is rendered? I agree that it is just an added fee and we are just subsidizing capitalists.
I don’t know how to fix it though. Not tipping does nothing but hurt the workers.
Not tipping does nothing but hurt the workers.
A business which can’t afford to pay their workers a livable wage doesn’t deserve to exist. If people stopped paying tips then that work no longer provides a livable wage and it becomes difficult for employers to find employees.
In the end they may even decide to pay their employees a livable wage. Some businesses have already done so.
Barbers, taxis and full service restaurants. Aka the only places you tipped 10 years ago.
Honestly - I can’t see any way but this.
If those jobs no longer pay enough to survive, nobody will take them on, and the capitalist will have to adapt or die.
This is something the government should be protecting workers against, but people are so scared to even unionise, it’s tragic.
Hair salons, nail salons, valet, dog grooming, any sort of contract work around your house like lawnmowing, bars…
Oof really good examples.
Nobody tips lawn mowers and contractors!
When I was well off I’d try to tip everyone who did even a half-decent job. Gas station attendants, grocery store workers, doesn’t matter…unless they refused as part of their work rules (some are like that) I would try to tip them.
At some point the responsibility falls on the workers to unionize. I’m aware that is painful. It is also the only true answer because if we wait on the corporate overlords to benevolently raise wages to an acceptable living standard and disband tipping, we’ll be waiting forever.
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Unfucking believable. Not a single mention of the actual problem in that article. Not a single mention of who is to blame.
Humans are dumb as fuck. Reddit was full of people mad at moderators for protesting Reddit’s api changes just a few weeks ago.
Dollars to donuts most of those were probably bots
Nah, people are absolutely dumb enough to call the mods childish losers for standing up for themselves.
What is the actual problem that’s not mentioned?
Billion dollar companies can pay their employees $2 an hour…
Why do you think they do this?
Because they’re greedy and it’s legal…
No it’s because customers are happier this way and the service staff makes more than they would otherwise, in a way that responds to inflationary pressures.
I disagree that customers are happier. People constantly complain about tipping. Those people are clearly not happy. Much of the world doesn’t do the tipping model, so it doesn’t seem like it is worthwhile for quality of service.
I do agree that staff are happier because they on average would make more (at least more than the paltry minimum wage most states have). But it comes at the cost of taking advantage of customers (basically trying to guilt trip them into paying more). I don’t support such business practices. Not to mention it’s not actually fair pay. You’re not actually being paid for quality of service. You’re paid for how much they like you, which leads to racial and gender pay disparities.
And the real winner? The business that gets to pay pennies to wait staff. They could incorporate the average tip into their prices and maintain the same pay. But they don’t want to. They want to advertise low prices so that they can get the full value from low tippers. They often even outright push mandatory tipping with auto gratuities, which is peak sleazeball behavior.
People only complain about tipping online. In the real world, that doesn’t happen.
Not only is this untrue, but it is disingenuous. I suggest you do more research about tipping and service wages in general.
It is absolutely true and I worked as a server for a decade, and still have friends working tipped jobs.
It’s crazy how some workers actually defend the tipping system and blame the consumer. They’re doing the work of their oppressors and can’t even realize it. The business isn’t subsidizing lower prices, they’re lining the pockets of their investors and telling the workers to get mad at the consumers.
Yeah my part time job is tipped and I hate it. It’s a a scam for both the consumer and the worker. I just want a higher wage and not be at the whelm of ppl
I find the ones that defend it are… Attractive. I’ve heard how some can make more in a weekend than I can in a 2 week period. None of em uggos.
Find me a job where I can make more than a full day of construction or contractor labor in 4-5hrs
Spoiler alert - that job is tipped.
deleted by creator
Sounds like you know some shitty wait staff. My daughter currently can top $130 in 4 hours at 18 in rural Ohio.
There’s no general construction worker making 90k/year in Ohio.
deleted by creator
That’s because you’re confusing construction and contractor work, which is different work.
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Or highly highly personable. But also usually both.
I was a workhorse and could solo Saturday rush for a restaurant with an hour wait, but I’d have made way more if I could flirt and bs with people when it’s slow.
You ain’t wrong.
I like the way Europe handles tipping. A lot of the restaurants generally add a fixed service charge (most often it’s about €3 per person), and that’s kinda it. It’s common to leave a couple of euros extra, but nothing too drastic. Huge tips are not expected, and like half of the machines don’t even support the tipping function (more common in France/Italy, for example, while countries like Greece are more likely to have tipping enabled).
There might be a bit more pressure to tip in more touristy city center places, but you’re better off avoiding those in general anyway. Smaller local restaurants are way better.
Furthermore, tipping isn’t expected outside of restaurants/deliveries at all. The amount of jobs that seem to require tipping in the US is insane. Like guys, just put it in the bill and tell me the price.
Recognizing that the act of asking for an unsolicited tip as a requisite part of buying a coffee is making both customers and himself uncomfortable, acknowledging that his take home pay is so abysmally low that he depends on tips to make a living, and then after all of that, blaming the customer as the primary problem for not being willing to tip in the current economy/environment, is like making a 95 yard run and then tripping over your own shoelaces at the endzone.
Sometimes you need to burn some clock before getting the TD. I understand what you’re getting at with your analogy, but felt like being slightly ornery for my own amusement. 😏
