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Comment by kasey_junk | Hacker News Reader

The last issue "Chef's will love you" has a lot less to do with tipping or not (personally I'm against tipping and wish it would go away, but its not why back of house staff get stiffed).

Back of house staff, in the US, cannot tip share. Its against the law. Assumedly this was originally meant as a worker protection, but in recent years, especially at higher end establishments, it acts as a wage limit for the people making the food.

We should change the labor laws for restaurants to allow for both worker protections (restaurants are notorious labor law violators) and to allow back of house staff to get some of the tip income.

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> Back of house staff, in the US, cannot tip share. Its against the law.

Do you have a reference for this? I know of a few restaurants, in New York and Arizona, where the kitchen shares in the pool.

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires tip pools to only include "employees who customarily and regularly receive tips" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act#Tippi...).

... my understanding is that provision generally excludes back of house staff (except busboys), but as usual the details of any particular situation require an actual legal opinion.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf

A labor lawyer could answer better, but if the restaurants are paying the credited wage and not the full one that is probably a labor law violation (which are rampant in restaurants).

Those are bizarre laws. I'm not sure if Netherland has any laws on tipping and sharing them, but I think some places share their tips with the entire staff. If you can tip the waiter for excellent service, then you should also be able to tip the kitchen staff if the food is particularly excellent.

The labor laws in the USA are extremely bizarre. Wait staff have a different, much lower, minimum wage than other workers. The restaurant is required to pay them the regular minimum wage if their tips do not make up the difference, and this is a source of many labor complaints.

For most wait staff this is not an issue. Their tips put them well above minimum wage status, but that is one of the big drivers of the tipping culture in the USA. Many of us know (as in had to pay our rent that way) that if you don't tip the waiter 20-25% it dramatically impacts their income. But that money cannot be shared with the back of house staff.

For high end restaurants this has a real impact on their ability to keep young kitchen professionals (and its also a driver of why so many undocumented workers work in low end kitchens, its a very poorly paying job in almost all cases).

The restaurant I worked in during the 80's pooled tips, and both the chef and the line/prep cooks shared in the pool. I think even the lowly dishwasher was included, though we all gave him part of our own tips before putting them in the pool.

You'd need to consult a labor lawyer to be sure but that is probably a labor law violation unless the front of house staff was being paid the regular minimum wage and not the credited wage.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf

IIRC the front of the house participated in the pool (I know because we were irritated with the Mgr getting our tips). The hostesses got min wage, but the managers were salaried (with bonuses).

How can laws on tipping have an impact on restaurants' ability to keep kitchen staff? They can still choose to pay them more, can't they?

Because 20-25% of the bill goes to one section of the workforce & customer appetites for the higher bills above those rates that would be required to pay better wages don't exist.

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