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Comment by mchanson | Hacker News Reader

Taking action against the victims of the system isn't moral.

And this is precisely why. If I decide not to tip the driver/waiter/etc... should not be a VICTIM. There should be no morality involved, the person doing the service should be fairly rewarded as a baseline for their work.

As consumers, what else are we to do?

Change the culture with tools like the $15 minimum wage for everyone, including wait staff. That would make tipping less necessary, if not irrelevant. Other countries manage to do it with no tips because they pay better.

A number of restaurants in NYC tried to go the "no tip, it's included in the price" route, and had to reverse course.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/nyregion/the-misadventure...

New York is not the ideal testbed for this concept.

And that is achieved easiest by not tipping at all. If everyone stopped tipping tomorrow then people who work for slave wages(because they get the rest in tips) would hopefully leave and find better paid jobs. People running restaurants would have to increase their wages to keep staff working. Problem would fix itself overnight without any need of government intervention. Every time you don't tip yes, the employee will think "what a skint bastard" but hopefully also think "god, this job sucks I need to find something that pays more".

And just as a counter point to your last sentence - waiters in UK frequently make hardly above minimum wage(£8-10/hour) and tipping is neither required nor expected.

> ...people who work for slave wages...would hopefully leave and find better paid jobs.

You really have no idea how tenuous employment for people is in those situations, do you? They don't take these jobs because they pay well, they take these jobs because that's all they have.

What they're going to think is "what a fucking asshole". Zero tipping is reserved for the sorts of dickheads that leave "Jesus money" instead of actual cash.

Minimum wage in the UK sounds a lot higher than minimum wage for wait staff in the US which can be as low as $2.13 in some states.

£10 is $13.29, which is a hell of a lot closer to $15 than $2.13.

This is a very good point. To just stop tipping wouldn't teach the restaurants anything. They still get their money from the food you ordered and can always churn out more wait staff willing to work for those low tips because it is better than nothing. Regulation that takes away the need to tip would be extremely helpful, else this probably won't change.

>> They don't take these jobs because they pay well, they take these jobs because that's all they have.

Really? Because I keep hearing how waiters in the US are actually paid very decent thanks to tips. They are ignoring the fact that the employer pays very little because they can at least make a living from tips. That's not acceptable.

It depends on where you live and work. In a busy urban environment where you're catering to people much richer than you, sure, you can do well.

If you're stuck in a rural location with light traffic and moderate incomes you're screwed.

So my position comes from what I can already see over here - you can go and be a regular delivery driver(with no tips) or work for Amazon Prime for minimum wage because there is a chance of tips. It's destroying the market because people who would otherwise never consider being delivery drivers for minimum wage are now considering it on the nebulous idea of maybe getting tips. And Amazon execs are giving each other high fives because stupid customers are subsidizing something that a multi-billion-dollar corporation should be paying for. The only way to fight against it is to not tip, and convince everyone you possibly can not to tip either. That's the only way to avoid this disease from coming over here. And I don't see how this wouldn't work in US either - yes, maybe there are people for whom like you said there is no other choice. But surely there are people who specifically agree to lower wages because they know they can get tips. If that promise was removed then this wouldn't be the choice people would be making.

It’s the companies that are paying the workers so little that they sustain themselves on tips that need to be fought against. Not leaving tips is not the solution until the workers don’t need the money.

Giving a tip will just perpetrate the system and companies will have no incentive to change a system they benefit from. Not tipping will cause people not to be drivers because there is no money to make, leaving the company in hot water, in which case they will either pay enough for people to want to work or perish.

The US is proving time and time again that the government will side with companies(capitalism, yay) so you can't expect the system to change unless the companies lose money.

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