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Comment by hombre_fatal | Hacker News Reader

But isn't this how almost all tipping already works?

I worked at restaurants where I had to report my tips or share them. If I dipped below minimum wage for the month, the restaurant was supposed to add whatever difference was needed (never saw it happen, btw).

So if DoorDash lowers the base pay, I don't see why anyone should die on DoorDash's hill when the base pay of all restaurants around them is a hilarious $2.15/hour. DoorDash pays a minimum of $1 per delivery no matter the tip.

Before people get too angry at DoorDash, they should realize this is ubiquitous.

We're never going to evolve away from tipping culture if our only trick is to get outraged at one company at a time that makes the mistake of having the spotlight fall on them.

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It doesn't have to work like this. We could pay folks a proper wage, and let them also keep their tips. When I was a pizza delivery driver, I got paid an hourly wage that started at minimum wage and increased after certain periods of work experience. In addition I got a delivery fee per order delivered during a shift, and on top of that I got to keep all tips given to me by the customers. So in practice, I was probably making double minimum wage on a moderately busy night. I was aghast that the in-restaurant wait staff got paid a significantly smaller hourly rate and were expected to make it up in tips.

Just to clarify that all tipping in the US works like this. The rest of western countries pays a fair wage and then tip is a bonus the waiter gets to keep (or shares with other staff in some contexts), but it's not expected to be part of pay.

It's not even all tipping in the US. Several states work the way you describe.

So what, it raises the waiter minimum wage from $2.50 an hour to $7.25 an hour? When the average waiter is making / expecting $10-$50+ an hour, it's still the situation OP describes where tips make up the vast majority of their pay. There are restaurants that do the higher prices no tips thing, but I am not aware of any states where you can show up at a random restaurant and get paid $30 an hour to wait tables?

Minimum wage in Oregon is $11.25/hr with no special considerations for wait staff. Tips are always on top of the hourly wage and do not subsidize the wage paid by the restaurant.

Having never been to Oregon: the interesting follow up here is, are you as a customer less incentivized to tip with this knowledge? As a Texas resident who has worked in food service in the past, 20% is near obligatory barring subpar service (Texas is one of the states that pays $2.15 an hour for waitstaff).

Nope. 15-20% is still pretty standard.

Also, in my experience, our prices are not higher than the $2.15/hr states.

Social inertia is shockingly powerful.

Servers make a lot while bussers and janitors and cooks get screwed

Counter example, Washington state doesn't allow tips to be counted towards employee's wage (https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/washington-laws-tipp...)

Washington state‘s minimum wage for tipped workers is also the same minimum wage as other workers though too.

Im a server in WA and im making 11.50 plus my tips. In the last state I was in I was making 2.50 plus tips.

But I'm guessing that in either job, you didn't have to take each individual tip to your manager so they could review it and decide how much to take for the house.

> Just to clarify that all tipping in the US works like this.

Wrong, only a subset of states with corrupt labor practices allow this.

Agreed. That being said, everyone knows that waiters/waitresses make their pay from tips. I think that most people had the expectation that delivery drivers were making base pay, and any tips were on top of that - the equivalent of handing the pizza delivery driver a couple of bucks when they get to the door. This was not the case, and certainly not communicated clearly to customers.

The fact that restaurants confiscate and aggregate all tips to divide them among the wait staff and the never-actually-tipped kitchen staff is also not communicated to customers. It is a matter of restaurant policy.

Also illegal, so report a restaurant if you know they’re doing that.

It is legal. It happens everywhere and it's even required by law in New York.

https://fortune.com/2014/03/20/starbucks-new-digital-tip-jar...

From my reading of the law the vast majority of tip pools are not legal, to wit:

>Tip Pool: The requirement that an employee must retain all tips does not preclude a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips, such as waiters, waitresses, bellhops, counter personnel (who serve customers), bussers, and service bartenders. A valid tip pool may not include employees who do not customarily and regularly received tips, such as dishwashers, cooks, chefs, and janitors.

I haven’t yet seen a tip pooling scheme that didn’t also include back of house, i.e. chefs/cooks, and often supervisors or managers which cannot be included by federal law.

But your point stands, my statement was overly broad.

> Before people get too angry at DoorDash, they should realize this is ubiquitous.

I know it's ubiquitous, I'm just enjoying seeing someone raked over the coals for it and I look forward to the angry mob moving on to everyone else who profits from this scummy practice.

Some states don't have a tip credit like Minnesota. They get minimum wage no matter what, plus tips.

I've worked as an hourly employee at a bar before. This isn't in the US. I was paid minimum wage, before tips as it's not legal to "make up the difference" where I live. If a customer gives a tip, the employee goes home with the tip additional to minimum wage. If an employer decides that I got $50 tips and minimum wage was $40, they don't get to keep my wages, they have to give me $40 and the customer tips bump my days earnings to $90. I find it bizarre and more than a little sad to see a first world country thinking it's OK to skim wages just because customers tipped.

This. The only way I can see things changing is to not tip. I know this will anger some people here but I just ordered on grubhub and tipped 0$. Why would I tip more if I already pay 6$ of delivery fee? Also, why would I tip a percentage in general? Can’t a waiter appreciate my 5$ tip without making a face every time like I’ve under tipped them?

If you think this is outrageous, you should consider that many people are like me and waiters get stiffed all the time by us. So every time you’re paying a tip you’re covering for me too. Isn’t this unfair?

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