The NY Times continues it's campaign to lower the wages of restaurant workers. I'll get back to this later today but in the meantime why don't you all have your usual chat about how uncomfortable tipping makes you...
For starters, it's the Washington Post and yes, this is one of Bezos' pet projects. But the gist of the article is not "abolish tipping" it's "when restaurant workers' wages are determined by gratuity, chauvinism and racism set the rates lower for women and minorities and foster sexual harassment and abuse." Further, the argument being made is not "abolish tipping" it's "abolish the $2.13 federal minimum wage that applies only to restaurant workers and replace it with the regular minimum wage everyone else makes" and "Every study you look at indicates this isn't a problem in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Alaska, Minnesota and Montana where states mandate the regular minimum wage for all employees."
Here is what I see in Portland with the higher server minimum. Servers make bank. They get $9.25 an hour and tips on top of that. To preserve profits in the low margin restaurant business the rest of the staff is lucky to get $10 an hour. Skilled culinarians get $12. Most the minorities that this article pretends to be concerned for don't wait tables and don't get raises when the server minimum is bumped up to the same as everyone else. I was making $12 an hour in a $2.35 state working as a line cook in 1996 (I still fought my way out of the BOH so I could make more money as a 2.35 tipped worker at a the same shitty chain resturant). I'd count myself lucky to work up to $12 after a year of high qulaity work at a place two decades later in a town with minimum wage parity. Market rent is $1100-1200 for a one bedroom in my less desirable neighborhood. If cooks couldn't eat at work they would be starving. They all live in houses and aprtrments packed with as many roommates as humanly possible. Minimum wage parity only suppresses the wages of the lowest paid employees in these circumstances. I'm sure it has different effects in other places but as far as it applies to this guy's piece it's pertinent, he's just as willing to narrowly apply a few instances or bits of evidence to the greater system. We are on the cusp of a $15 minimum wage in greater Portland with rural oregon getting a lesser but significant hike. No cooks will get raises for a long long time after it goes into effect but it will go a long way toward making their lives easier than wage parity which only increased the suffering off all the non-tipped staff at restaurants. Lol, I'm so used to the NYT's assult on restaurant employees wages that I forgot what I was reading. I do think the higher minimum is the main reason service is terrible in this town. After gorging themselves on a princly 9.25 an hour many wait staff don't seem to have an appetite for doing their fucking job. Too often I've wondered why my fellow employees come to work, because it doesn't seem to be a desire to maximize the profitability of their work hours. I feel this burn most when splitting tips and they are on their fourth 20 minute smoke break with their friends.
Why not? By your own analysis, "servers make bank." I'm gonna guess it's the externalities discussed in the article, such as the fact that white men tend to be tippers, and they tend to tip white women better. And obviously - the brunt of the direct cost of minimum wage increases is going to be shouldered by employers. The reaction should not be "preserve the injustice" however. The divide always comes down to restauranteurs declaring the unfairness of shouldering the burden of the expense of wages and literally everyone else declaring the unfairness of forcing literally everyone else to figure out the economics of restaurant service on the fly. Usually, this takes the form of complaint about margins. Usually, these arguments are made as if suggested gratuities haven't climbed from 15% to 25% in the past 10 years. Usually, these arguments are made as if the price of well drinks hasn't climbed from $3 to $8 in the past 15 years. I had a double jim beam at a dive bar two weeks ago. I was charged $18. Then I was expected to tip $5, because it's rude to round down. Even with the usurious liquor taxes in WA state I can buy a bottle of Jim Beam for $16. Is there overhead? Sure. Are there factors not being considered? Absolutely. Do you make more money on dessert than you do on chicken? 100%. But why am I expected to know this stuff? I mixed Joe Bostianich and Gordon Ramsay explaining the mechanics of tip skimming to Graham Norton once. We weren't rolling and they forgot that there were 9 sound mixers listening in on their mics. Based on the hot links, I suspect Graham did the right thing and some of that audio maybe made its way to plaintiffs. But I know this, most people don't. I know that serving at Olive Garden is a losing cost proposition. Most people don't. I know that tip pooling can be required by states, but can't be carried out by employers, meaning that there's a whole 'nuther level of shadyness behind the scenes and I know that automatic gratuities aren't classified as tips under federal law meaning sometimes when I'm tipping, I'm not tipping and sometimes when I'm not tipping, I'm tipping. And really. Fuck everything about that. I just want a goddamn burger. Slap a fucking gratuity on it and don't put a tip line on the receipt. SORTED. Now I don't need to wonder if I'm tipping a lot because she's good or because she's hot, I don't need to wonder if the service sucked because she's on her cell phone or because the kitchen hates her, I don't need to worry about hassling the busboy to bring me water because he isn't being tipped out enough to deal with my ass, I don't need to worry that she needs 25% rather than 20% because the computer she punches my order into is sucking 5% off the top. And you get to keep my "tip" to pay your staff their wage out of.Most the minorities that this article pretends to be concerned for don't wait tables