32
Are you obliged to tip or can you refuse? (feddit.online)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/casualconversation@piefed.social
48 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm not into tipping when I've visited the US, since I come from a country where servers are paid the equivalent of Fr. 20-30 ($24-43) an hour so there isn't an obligation to tip them, but that's the opposite in the US. Am I allowed to hand them large cash tips such as Fr. 1000 ($1236) or 500€ ($583)? It gets weirder: as apparently fast food places demand a tip, like really? It's getting out of hand, what's the point then?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

At least in the U.S.. Tipping culture is massively inefficient, unfair and tragically codified into law. It should be abolished in every sense of the word.

But... having said that, I can't say "don't tip". Yes the customer is being guilted into subsidizing a workers wage, but NOT tipping directly hurts the worker that we all agree should be making more then what's agreed. It sucks but there is no action customers can take that will result in service members being paid more. The problem is too far rampant and ingrained. It would take a herculean legal rework, massive ad campaigns and decades to fully end.

So unfortunately, because it is the norm and all employees and employers plan on it, my answer is yes you have to tip.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    A little while back in another thread, someone was arguing that the only way to force the US away from tipping was to not tip. That is just...that's not going to work.

    Okay, let's say that enough people stopped tipping servers to the point that the employers have to start making up the difference to pay them minimum wage. Then what? Small businesses already operating on a thin margin close. Chains raise prices. Previously tipped workers probably make less than half of what they did previously. And the government? They do nothing because, heck, everyone is getting paid enough. Because we all know that US minimum wage is definitely something people can live on.

    Increased prices and closing of some small businesses seems inevitable no matter how you go about it, but we can't just rely on restaurants paying servers up to $7.25 an hour and expecting them to survive. It's a massive change and needs to come from the top down. And I can't see that happening.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (1 child)

    Those restaurants do already pay more than minimum wage for the most part. Look at McDonald’s national average for their lowest paid employees. It’s $12-$14/h.

    And like another person so kindly pointed out in this thread, they make 15-20x of $40/h waiting tables. Not tipping is not going to hurt most servers. It’s just going to get those servers to help change the law quicker.

    That massive change never comes from the top down. It comes from the bottom up. That’s literally every law in this fucking country. If people don’t push for it, it will not change. Slavery, women’s rights, gender rights, marriage rights, literally all of it is bottom up change.

    Chains raise prices

    There have been so many studies on this. It’s something like, for every $1 increase in minimum wage, food costs go up by $.01. Businesses have done a hilariously good job of convincing citizens that any increase in wages will hurt the costs of food.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago (1 child)

    Sorry for any confusion. I don't consider McDonald's a tipped server. I'm talking about restaurant workers whose hourly wage without tips is below minimum wage.

    The "tip everyone working any service job" is something else entirely.

    Obviously a single customer not tipping doesn't hurt a server financially, but this isn't really about a single customer, right? You have to get to a tipping point (no pun intended) to affect change. If we all just gave up on tipping without a solution in place, who suffers? The servers. That's it.

    Fair enough on raising prices, but with chains I was thinking less about the increase coming from paying employees and more from "look, people will pay more!"

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago

    Sorry for any confusion. I don't consider McDonald's a tipped server. I'm talking about restaurant workers whose hourly wage without tips is below minimum wage.

    Oh I also don’t consider McDonald’s workers a tipped server. But that doesn’t matter. The law is if they are tipped more than $30 a MONTH in tips. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa

    That means if they get a single dollar a day in tips they legally classify as a tipped employee. So all these restaurants putting a tip option on their checkouts are fundamentally forcing their employees into a tipped role. Even if they only get $30 a month in tips.

    But that wasn’t why I used McDonald’s as an example. I used it as an example because McDonald’s is everywhere. It’s in tiny countryside towns, other countries, etc. So those small businesses operating on thin margins were already competing with employers paying much more than minimum wage.

    Fair enough on raising prices, but with chains I was thinking less about the increase coming from paying employees and more from "look, people will pay more!"

    McDonald’s didn’t raise prices when minimum wage went up in a number of states, because it was already paying more. But in some places it wasn’t, and the prices of food didn’t go up even with a minimum wage increase, because the price of food is the overwhelmingly most expensive part of a restaurant. When McDonald’s prices did go up was when tariffs hit, when food gets diseased, etc.

    I use McDonald’s as as example for all this because it’s a lot easier to see the effects of federal policy when you can compare against every single state.

    Increased prices and closing of some small businesses seems inevitable no matter how you go about it, but we can't just rely on restaurants paying servers up to $7.25 an hour and expecting them to survive. It's a massive change and needs to come from the top down. And I can't see that happening.

    Those restaurants have to pay that amount no matter what. Either it’s a hidden cost for the customers, or if the customers don’t tip enough they have to pay up to minimum wage for that state. So small business in California for example, already have to pay $16.90 an hour, if a server doesn’t make $16.90 an hour from the tipped minimum wage plus their tips. The costs are just hidden from consumers.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent