submitted 9 months ago by billbasher@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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There are laws in place for service workers related to minimum wage. The employers have to make up the difference if tips don’t meet the rate for hours worked. It seems to me that’s not sufficient for the times.

Hypothetically, if everyone were to stop tipping in the U.S. would things be better or worse for workers? Would employers start paying workers more?

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[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works -4 points 9 months ago

Every server would quit and get a different job because no restaurant is going to match what they were making in tips, and it's not worth the hassle to serve for what the restaurant could afford. Service quality would regress to the minimum, because there's no incentive to provide prompt, high quality, friendly service.

Anyone who's never waited tables vastly underestimates how much the tip incentive effects your server checking on you frequently, answering your questions and making recommendations, getting your food out quickly and ensuring everything is satisfactory, refilling your beverage frequently, bringing your check promptly, and doing it all diplomatically even when you're being an asshole.

Frankly, I think American service expectations are a bit high, but if you're used to it then all that would stop very shortly after the customers stop tipping. Think of the performance of every other minimum-or-near-minimum wage hourly worker. That's your server. Anyone with the professionalism to maintain that kind of service will move on to Sales or something.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

That’s a very simplistic view. Assuming that restaurants wouldn’t raise their prices to match the average people were paying before and pay their servers what they were being paid.

The difference in this scenario is that everyone would be paying the same price for the same meal and servers wouldn’t have to struggle through off days.

But yeah, definitely all restaurants would go out of business and it would be anarchy. You have a really shit view of minimum wage workers too. Almost every minimum wage worker I’ve worked with has been professional. If they’re not, they get fired. You know who hasn’t though? The millionaires who can afford to treat people like shit cause they won’t get canned.

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works -2 points 9 months ago

What do I know, I only worked in the industry for a decade. My views are probably oversimplified because I only based them on personal experience with hundreds of coworkers. All the minimum effort coworkers I had to deal with must have a been crazy flukes, that's very reassuring.

You're probably right, unanimous industry-wide wage increases would happen flawlessly and there would be no consequences whatsoever. Change implementation at that scale is simple and easy, restaurant margins are cushy enough to smoothly handle that kind of transition, and restaurant owners would obviously navigate the voluntary wage increase without a hitch.

[-] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Hmmm where have I heard "No way to change this, says only country where this happens" before?

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works -3 points 9 months ago

Considering I didn't say that, not sure how it's relevant to the topic.

American service expectations are overinflated, and those expectations are propped up by tip culture. You can certainly change it, the change will just come with the bursting of the service-expectation bubble.

[-] LanternEverywhere@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

What are you talking about? I've eaten at restaurants in other countries and the service has always been great.

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works -3 points 9 months ago

Maybe by your standards, probably by mine, but I'm assuming we're both fairly reasonable people. When you serve tens of thousands of people, you find out that there is a significant portion of the American public with unreasonable expectations of service. That's the service expectation I'm talking about.

[-] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago

That's a societal problem, absolutely nothing to do with the tipping culture

Try being a dick like that in another country and you'll get turfed out the restaurant like the cunt you are

This, by the way, is why yanks think Parisians are extra rude, because they're extra rude to cunts lol

this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024

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