I don't understand why people still tip if they make 15 per hour. As it writes in the article they have tip credit but the employer would still have to cough that 15 bucks if they didn't make enough in tips.
> but the employer would still have to cough that 15 bucks if they didn't make enough in tips.
This gets you fired. You'll get your requested increased compensation in your next check, and the following week you're reduced to about 5 hours of work total. The following week after that you're let go for poor performance because if you're the only employee asking for tip compensation you're basically admitting you don't get tipped as well as other employees.
Not that I agree earning low tips is synonymous with poor performance, but try convincing a stereotypical crappy manager that.
It's also one of those situations where the people getting screwed over don't really have the means to defend themselves. If $400 in missing wages is a big deal (as it should be), one isn't really able to hire a lawyer to take care of the case for them.
Also people lie. I worked at Burger King as a teen and the manager would lie to everyone, saying if he found out they were applying for other jobs they would be fired. Super illegal, and he has no way of even knowing outside of reference calls. But pretty much every older employee believed him and didn't want to risk homelessness because they tried switching jobs. I remember telling him something along the lines of "Fuck off, I'm 16 and live with my parents"(he thought I was older), but it didn't hit me until years later that he was basically keeping the other employees his prisoners.
Or does the law only give $15 if there aren’t tips?
If you have to tell your employer to cough up the remainder, you're going to suddenly find yourself getting scheduled only an hour or two a week, if at all.
"Zero-hours contracts are NOT permitted in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain. There is an uncertainty as to their validity in Sweden. Generally they are not permitted under Swedish law but may be agreed by collective bargaining." https://www.igloballaw.com/zero-hours-contracts/
Not sure what "Europe" you're talking about, but in my part of Europe, they aren't...
Austria Belgium Czech Rep Estonia France Lithuania Luxemburg
Since 2016, it has been banned in: Hungary Ireland
Zero-hour employment contracts are heavily regulated in: Germany Italy Netherlands Slovakia
So yeah, it is not banned everywhere (or allowed in certain professions only), but in 70% of the EU.
[1]: https://fullfact.org/law/zero-hours-contracts-uk-europe
Further complicating the issue, at 30 hours, many employees become eligible for benefits, so there's a disincentive to increasing an employee past 29 hours/week.
Then, in the restaurant industry, there is a separate, lower minimum wage which assumes the employee makes up the difference in tips. If they don't make up the difference, they can request the employer cover the gap, but the employer will just cut their hours or fire them for being a poor employee.
Hah, good one, but not if you're marginalized. The majority of the states in the US are "right-to-work," which means you can be fired at any time for almost any reason. For the other states, there are varying levels of protection. I can't really speak to what is stipulated in their contracts, but I can tell you the following: if you're working two+ jobs, commuting 2hrs + because you can't afford to live in the city, and have to cook and clean your apartment on top of that, you don't have time to inform the Department of Labor (that's likely not even the right place to call--better spend some more time finding out what is) that you're being exploited.
> Zero-hour contracts are explicitly illegal, even for the self-employed.
By referring to getting scheduled at all, I was indicating you would likely just be outright fired the next time you dropped a glass, were 1 minute late, or any other minor, human-prone error happened.
You technically have to be compensated up to regular minimum wage if tips don't make it but that's a great way to get your hours reduced due to "scheduling changes"
I get good service in restaurants because it's their job, but I can tip 0-10% if the service is beyond what I expect.
The important thing isn't that the pay is guaranteed for staff that doesn't provide good service, what's important is that their pay is guaranteed even if there are no customers. Bringing in customers isn't the job of waiting staff (apart from providing good service) - so their pay should never depend on it.
That is not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity
All else being equal you will get better service from a person that is directly rewarded by offering that better service. Should it work that way? No. Does it? Obviously. And yes we can all think of outliers and yes some culturing differences play into this (Japan has a no tipping culture and on average has excellent service) but I live in Amsterdam and the service on average is absolutely less customer focused here than what I experience in the US. It's worth pointing out I also prefer it that way (not a huge fan of constantly being asked if I need anything and less than genuine niceties but that's a subjective thing)
I don't mean this in a bad way, but are you american? It does seem a very US viewpoint that goodwill etc. don't really exist (or matter? something else?), and that people need concrete incentives to treat others decently.
Sure money's an motivator but perhaps a bigger one is to have a client treat you with decency. Sure money helps but to have a client just make you feel OK instead of crap, that would matter a lot more to most people. A big tip wouldn't negate bad attitude, even if it got staff to pretend to give a damn about you.
Happened to read this yesterday, not tasteful but relevant <https://theoatmeal.com/comics/tipping_tooting>
Edit: To be clear, in my experience I don’t find the service of an average U.S. waiter/waitress better than that of an average waiter/waitress in a country without a tipping culture.
Ah yes, now that you bring it up, I’m definitely not a fan of that either.
Another way tipping can add toxicity is when a guest isn’t aware of the tipping culture / not sure how much to tip, ends up not tipping or undertipping, and in those cases sometimes you’d notice nasty looks or other forms of visible grumpiness. (Checks don’t always include recommended tip amounts.)
They do this because they were instructed by their manager to do this. And the reason that managers want it done, is because they want the customers to finish their food and quickly vacate the table, freeing it up for the next customers. Of course they won’t tell you outright to leave, but they think they can psychologically obtain the same effect just by bugging you and making it hard for you and your fellow diner(s) to have a peaceful, leisurely conversation.
This can happen in Europe, too. At a couple of cafes in my town, as soon as you drink the last drop in your glass, the waitress will rush over and ask if you would like to order anything else. Owners do not like customers who occupy a table for a long time on just one single purchase.
That said, I flipped on this recently. The above utopian perspective simply doesn't align with reality anymore. Higher tips simply do result in on average better service (be it genuine or otherwise) and do incentivise waiters to work for the customer rather than their employer. The latter has value too. Which waiter do you want in a case where the owner of a dodgy establishment is asking their waiters to push the fish that's about to go bad? A waiter living off of tips from (return) customers or the one that just gets wage from that employer?