this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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I disagree.
You should not look at the customer to make up extra payment so your wage becomes bearable. This way you are pointing in the wrong direction for a fair pay.
The customer is not the one responsible for you making enough money. Your employer is.
Employers are also the only people gaining anything from tipping. The laws in the US actually allow employers to pay less than minimum wage if the worker receives tips: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips Since tipping is not predictable the employer wins by having to pay the worker less. The worker loses.
Also you as the worker are responsible to track and pay taxes on the tips you received, not your employer: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tip-recordkeeping-and-reporting
I understand it sounds scary when I say "Stop tipping" because it sounds like less money to you, but don't look at me, the customer, for this. Look at the employer. Stop tipping.
Edit: I agree with your take to stop engaging with companies that rely on tipping to change this, though. I think that was not clear from my comment.
If you think that workers aren't being paid an equitable wage and you continue to spend money on something that isn't essential, you're complicit. The employer may be putting the idea of underpaying their workers on the table, but you're the one allowing him to continue to operate. He doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The entitlement here comes both from the greedy employer and from the greedy consumer. Greed is wrong regardless of what side of the counter you stand on. No ethical consumption under capitalism, sure, but that doesn't mean you have to participate in stiffing someone.
Totally agree with this.
You've brought up very good points. As long as consumers support this it will stay the same.
It's not the customers responsibility to save a worker who chose to take a job that doesn't pay a livable wage.
I think they do, but I also think that we actually owe one another something as human beings, and most people seem not to.
It's true that the people using the services are also enablers, but I don't hold them responsible either, when it comes to wage related questions.
The employer is responsible for paying a livable wage, but the employee is responsible for choosing to do said work.
If nobody did, the system would collapse and change in a month. No amount of never tipping/feedback can fix what's broken, only the employees can.
That doesn't really line up with reality though. We're living in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor is expanding and wealth is being consolidated. Minimum wage fails to be enough to support a person, but most service-oriented companies seem to manage to get away with paying it pretty readily.
Workers can try to unionize, but that's an uphill battle and it doesn't immediately guarantee a living wage for their labor. In the case of a lot of service jobs, it may make a lot more sense individually to just get out of the industry rather than try to improve it.
Like, I've worked in places that would benefit from a stronger bargaining position for workers, but that doesn't mean unionizing is going to be achievable in all of those contexts.
And for some jobs, tipping is literally what makes them sustainable. Outside of a metro area, tipping may well be the reason you even have a taxi company or any restaurants at all. I don't know about you, but I like living in a world where we get the stuff that we need. To me, that means that I should participate in those systems in good faith when I use them rather than subverting them and making the margins thinner for the most vulnerable people involved.
The reality is that this issue only exists in the US, if we're talking about first world countries. It's a cultural problem in attitudes.