It's so fucking stupid

Just raise the prices by 20% and also pay the staff 20% more.

But fuck workers' rights and living wages, right?

Tbf, while the system exists as it does, not tipping the workers only hurts the workers you supposedly support, their employers don't care because they got theirs already and there's a revolving door of people who need work bad enough when the worker gets fed up.

If you actually wanted to help those workers you'd have to entirely not support businesses that use the tipping model by "not going there" and only go to ones that don't. Or you could go, but while there try and unionize servers, I suppose. But then when the workers strike for the thing you want you'll still have to not cross the picket line so it's the same in the end just more effective.

I practice what I preach btw, I only go to restaurants that don't run off tips for the most part, and I tip when I do happen end up at one of those places. Sometimes I'll tip even at places that don't really "run off tips" but I want to help out a bit, like my local taco truck, I love them so much and don't mind throwing them an extra $2 to show my appreciation, they're not rich people it's just a family trying to get by, with great prices no less.

To summarize: I don't pass out info on unionizing, but I do support non-tipping businesses on average and still don't fuck the workers over in a misguided attempt to hurt their boss when I do end up at a tipping place.