Asklemmy

43757 readers

2316 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

248

Visiting the US soon - do I really have to tip? (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago by kilgore@feddit.de to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

280 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey Folks!

I've been living abroad for over half my life in a country where tipping is not the norm. At most you would round up. 19€ bill? Here's a 20, keep this change.

Going to the US soon to visit family and the whole idea of tipping makes me nervous. It seems there's a lot of discussion about getting rid of tipping, but I don't know how much has changed in this regard.

The system seems ridiculously unfair, and that extra expense in a country where everything is already so expensive really makes a difference.

So will AITA if I don't tip? Is it really my personal responsibility to make sure my server is paid enough?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most establishments in the US pay waitstaff way under minimum wage ($2-$3 per hour). If you don't tip your waiter at an establishment like this, you are basically denying that waiter their wage

I don't think you know how "minimum wage" works. It's not a suggestion, it's a legal requirement. If your tips don't make you at least minimum wage, your employer is required to make up the difference. If they're not doing that, talk to a lawyer, that's a slam dunk case. You'll get back pay.

[–] hotspur@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's all good in theory, but in practice? Look up statistics on wage theft in the restaurant industry (hell, look up wage theft as whole in the US), and you'll see that many, many workers go under paid.

And even if employers always met the minimum wage, the minimum wage is far less than a "living wage," in this country.

Again, I want to stress that the practice of tipping is absolutely outdated, and should be removed. My point is simply that not tipping your waiter does more harm to them than their employer.

We should be encouraging these places to unionize, and demand that their employers pay them fairly.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

Totally agree that minimum wage is not as high as it should be. No disagreement there. My point is that workers in the restaurant industry are not uniquely able to make below minimum wage. Any employer can break the law and pay under what they're legally required to, not just in the restaurant industry. And yet we're saying that the onus for making sure this doesn't happen in the restaurant industry uniquely falls on the customers. That's just not a reasonable argument to make.

It's identical to shifting the blame for climate change from corporations to individuals. It's not a customer's fault for not tipping any more than it's Joe Schmo's fault for having a gas heater, poorly insulated house, and having to commute an hour every day in a gas car. Both can only effectively be solved through regulation.

We should be encouraging these places to unionize, and demand that their employers pay them fairly.

Totally agree.

[–] hotspur@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago