Joined May 2008
Knowledge is power
Forum Thread
"Would you like to leave a tip"? Is it time to end tipping and make business owners pay minimum wage, or more?
December 22, 2022 at
07:18 AM
in
Question
Saw this on Linkedin and wondered what the SD community thought.
Looking at the slavery origins of tipping, I believe it's still used to exploit desperate people today. I don't see any reason why a business owner should be allowed to pay someone less than the federal minimum wage, it seems purely exploitative to me. I think the business owners know there will always be some starving college student or desperate single mother who needs the money so bad they'll accept a shitty deal...and shame on our legislators for allowing it to continue.
Now we're seeing situations where people that go to pickup a coffee or pizza are faced with an automatic tip that's been added to the order, and they have to manually choose "No Tip" if they don't want to pay more money for the same item (for absolutely no reason). To me it seems like a challenge, a guilt trip, to force the consumer to "take the money out of the hands" of the starving college student or mother; a way of shifting the burden of blame from the cheap business owner to the consumer.
As someone who is in their 30's, having a tip automatically added to a pickup order is new...I've lived in many places in this country and have never encountered this before the last year or two. My understanding has always been that if you sit down and are served, you should tip (unless the service is really bad), and if you don't want to tip, pickup the order and leave. Am I the crazy one here?
When I reflect on why this ancient system is still allowed to exist...when I ask myself "which group of people is allowing this problematic scenario to continue"...to me it's the cheap ass business owners. Why should every industry have to abide by the federal min wage, except restaurant and hospitality? Why should those two industries be allowed to pass the cost of paying their employees onto the customer? Someone in the Linkedin thread asked "Would you rather pay $6 for a coffee, or $4 and a $2 tip"? I think the purpose of the question was to ask if they'd rather just see a higher menu price with the tip already factored in...I thought to myself, yes, that would be so much simpler...then I asked myself why that wasn't already being done...I concluded that it's because the business owner thinks his sales would drop if he had to raise his prices...which begs the question, if he can't keep his business open while complying with the federal minimum wage...should he be allowed to continue his business? I say no.
What say you?
"The option to tip is seemingly everywhere today, but the practice has a troubled history in the United States.
Tipping spread after the Civil War as an exploitative measure to keep down [npr.org] wages of newly-freed slaves in service occupations. Pullman was the most notable for its tipping policies. The railroad company hired thousands of Black porters, but paid them low wages and forced them to rely on tips to make a living.
Critics of tipping argued that it created an imbalance between customers and workers, and several states passed laws in the early 1900s to ban the practice.
In "The Itching Palm," a 1916 diatribe on tipping in America, writer William Scott said that tipping was "un-American" [npr.org]and argued that "the relation of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation of master and slave."
[cnn.com]
But tipping service workers was essentially built into law by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the federal minimum wage that excluded restaurant and hospitality workers. This allowed the tipping system to proliferate in these industries."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/17/bu...index.html
Looking at the slavery origins of tipping, I believe it's still used to exploit desperate people today. I don't see any reason why a business owner should be allowed to pay someone less than the federal minimum wage, it seems purely exploitative to me. I think the business owners know there will always be some starving college student or desperate single mother who needs the money so bad they'll accept a shitty deal...and shame on our legislators for allowing it to continue.
Now we're seeing situations where people that go to pickup a coffee or pizza are faced with an automatic tip that's been added to the order, and they have to manually choose "No Tip" if they don't want to pay more money for the same item (for absolutely no reason). To me it seems like a challenge, a guilt trip, to force the consumer to "take the money out of the hands" of the starving college student or mother; a way of shifting the burden of blame from the cheap business owner to the consumer.
As someone who is in their 30's, having a tip automatically added to a pickup order is new...I've lived in many places in this country and have never encountered this before the last year or two. My understanding has always been that if you sit down and are served, you should tip (unless the service is really bad), and if you don't want to tip, pickup the order and leave. Am I the crazy one here?
When I reflect on why this ancient system is still allowed to exist...when I ask myself "which group of people is allowing this problematic scenario to continue"...to me it's the cheap ass business owners. Why should every industry have to abide by the federal min wage, except restaurant and hospitality? Why should those two industries be allowed to pass the cost of paying their employees onto the customer? Someone in the Linkedin thread asked "Would you rather pay $6 for a coffee, or $4 and a $2 tip"? I think the purpose of the question was to ask if they'd rather just see a higher menu price with the tip already factored in...I thought to myself, yes, that would be so much simpler...then I asked myself why that wasn't already being done...I concluded that it's because the business owner thinks his sales would drop if he had to raise his prices...which begs the question, if he can't keep his business open while complying with the federal minimum wage...should he be allowed to continue his business? I say no.
What say you?
"The option to tip is seemingly everywhere today, but the practice has a troubled history in the United States.
Tipping spread after the Civil War as an exploitative measure to keep down [npr.org] wages of newly-freed slaves in service occupations. Pullman was the most notable for its tipping policies. The railroad company hired thousands of Black porters, but paid them low wages and forced them to rely on tips to make a living.
Critics of tipping argued that it created an imbalance between customers and workers, and several states passed laws in the early 1900s to ban the practice.
In "The Itching Palm," a 1916 diatribe on tipping in America, writer William Scott said that tipping was "un-American" [npr.org]and argued that "the relation of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation of master and slave."
[cnn.com]
But tipping service workers was essentially built into law by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the federal minimum wage that excluded restaurant and hospitality workers. This allowed the tipping system to proliferate in these industries."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/17/bu...index.html
25 Comments
Your comment cannot be blank.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
See #4 in this article. [buzzfeed.com]
Pulp Fiction also is a must. Winston Wolf's (The Fixer) scene is an absolute genius.
The college I attended didn't pay minimum wage because the law didn't require it. Same with certain businesses. Right or wrong, it's how the legislative process works in our country. Over time, such legislatures seem to have increasingly forgotten that their purpose is supposed to represent the people and not just donors. That's why I support term limits and professional politicians despise them.
Have you already seen the video in my sig?
I was thinking of the quote from To kill a mocking bird when the boy was offered a 5 cent tip to bust up a chifforobe. WTF is a chifforobe?? This is America, speak English mfuker!!
You'll have to watch it and let us know if you agree with Steve Buscemi
What law compelled the employees to actually agree to take the job that pays less than the fed or state min wage???
Besides working in a bar or food venue...
The Sales Industry will typically pay a BASE salary that is usually CRAP wages* PLUS Commision.
Folks take those jobs hopful they will make their quota's but if they don't, all they have is the base salary, which is probably not enough to live on for their geographic location.
Why is this model "Fair and/or Legal" ?
*won't debate if it makes minimum wage or not.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
"NEW YORK (AP) — Across the country, there's a silent frustration brewing about an age-old practice that many say is getting out of hand: tipping.
Some fed-up consumers are posting rants on social media complaining about tip requests at drive-thrus, while others say they're tired of being asked to leave a gratuity for a muffin or a simple cup of coffee at their neighborhood bakery. What's next, they wonder -- are we going to be tipping our doctors and dentists, too?
As more businesses adopt digital payment methods, customers are automatically being prompted to leave a gratuity — many times as high as 30% — at places they normally wouldn't. And some say it has become more frustrating as the price of items has skyrocketed due to inflation, which eased to 6.5% in December [apnews.com] but still remains painfully high.
"Suddenly, these screens are at every establishment we encounter. They're popping up online as well for online orders. And I fear that there is no end," said etiquette expert Thomas Farley, who considers the whole thing somewhat of "an invasion."
"If you work for a company, it's that company's job to pay you for doing work for them," said Mike Janavey, a footwear and clothing designer who lives in New York City. "They're not supposed to be juicing consumers that are already spending money there to pay their employees."
Schenker, the Philadelphia barista, agrees — to a certain extent.
"The onus should absolutely be on the owners, but that doesn't change overnight," he said. "And this is the best thing we have right now."
"NEW YORK (AP) — Across the country, there's a silent frustration brewing about an age-old practice that many say is getting out of hand: tipping.
Some fed-up consumers are posting rants on social media complaining about tip requests at drive-thrus, while others say they're tired of being asked to leave a gratuity for a muffin or a simple cup of coffee at their neighborhood bakery. What's next, they wonder -- are we going to be tipping our doctors and dentists, too?
As more businesses adopt digital payment methods, customers are automatically being prompted to leave a gratuity — many times as high as 30% — at places they normally wouldn't. And some say it has become more frustrating as the price of items has skyrocketed due to inflation, which eased to 6.5% in December [apnews.com] but still remains painfully high.
"Suddenly, these screens are at every establishment we encounter. They're popping up online as well for online orders. And I fear that there is no end," said etiquette expert Thomas Farley, who considers the whole thing somewhat of "an invasion."
"If you work for a company, it's that company's job to pay you for doing work for them," said Mike Janavey, a footwear and clothing designer who lives in New York City. "They're not supposed to be juicing consumers that are already spending money there to pay their employees."
Schenker, the Philadelphia barista, agrees — to a certain extent.
"The onus should absolutely be on the owners, but that doesn't change overnight," he said. "And this is the best thing we have right now."