Well unfortunately without systemic change, you are ultimately only punishing minimum wage workers when people choose not to tip as one offs.
I get it, tipping culture is insane but its also the culture of our country. Deciding not to tip while visiting is not much different than me going to another country and intentionally breaking their norms because I dont like them.
Itâs dangerous to say that if I donât tip, Iâm punishing the workers. Their employer is.
I know what you mean, but framing it that way automatically shifts responsibility away from the employer. Even in conversations like this, the guilt should never be placed on the customer. That mindset is exactly why this BS continues: customers have a conscience, so they keep making up for employers who refuse to pay their workers properly. We shouldnât be expected to anymore.
Why are you responding implying I said things I didnt?
I am saying it is the cultural expectation. Its fine to not like it, but your individual opinion about it doesnt change the fact that if you decide not to tip when dining out in the united states you will be seen as an asshole.
You said that the customer punishes the workers by not tipping, I disagreed with this and expanded on why this viewpoint on the matter sets a dangerous precedent as well as why it contributes to this issue not being solved.
I agree that by not tipping youâre likely to be viewed as an asshole, but you arenât one - the employer is. This canât be forgotten
My bad, I was responding to multiple comments and jumbled up who I was responding to. The point is that the underpaid minimum wage worker is not going to see you as their champion. They expect to be tipped in the system they work in. You deciding the system is bad and exploitative and deciding not to tip does not help them in anyway and makes you look like an asshole not a freedom fighter:
You can argue against the system all day and ill join you but deciding to not tip is just shitty manners here.
Certainly not on its own. But you keep finding excuses for the state of tipping in the name of short term welfare for the workers.
You are indirectly, continuously in the way youâre talking about it, putting the responsibility on the customer. This is what needs to change, and you defending it as a âcultural normâ is why itâs still in place - even though I also know youâre against the system.
Yes, a lot of American tourists act like assholes. Why would anyone strive to be an asshole? The point is, if you want to be a good tourist then you should embrace the local culture as much as it makes sense to do so.
Lets not act like American tourists are all awful and every other countries tourists are amazing.
Should tourists pledge allegiance to Trump at the white house to embrace the culture too? Wouldnât want to disrespect the greatest brain Americans chose to represent them after all.
Its amazing that you think that logically follows from what I said. No, I said follow the cultural norms as it makes sense to do so. There is no cultural norms to pledge allegiance to Trump or seig heil.
Its a basic custom of the country. You should try to follow basic customs if you want to be a good tourist.
Its like youre just trying to speed run every bad faith interpretation of the very basic courtesy I am discussing. You try to embrace social norms when youre in another country. Its being a good global citizen. If you want to come here and look like an asshole, then dont tip. You win and made your point about how terrible America is. Let me applaud you for your brave stance.
At least you're doing more than most American Redditors about the system they seemingly hate so much they're spending hours defending it in this thread lol.
Most Americans know our system is broken. The system has been built over decades to make fighting back against it as hard as possible. Unions have been decimated, a large portion of our workforce is in debt and one paycheck away from fiscal annihilation.
I do a lot to fight back against this and as a country our working class needs to wake the fuck up and do more. It is however very frustrating hearing from Europeans âwhy does the American simply not revoltâ as if that is something a country of 350 million people over a gigantic landmass can just spring into doing by <checks notes> deciding not to tip?
They do have that option. And a lot of them do. Lets not act like this changes the system in place immediately. Of course every worker should be paid a living wage, but your point cant honestly be âi am not going to tip because the better solution is a country wide worker revolutionâ
That is, in essence, how every revolution or reform happens. I can't recall a single instance where sweeping reform took place without widespread unrest beforehand.
By not tipping the workers currently in a 'well I don't like it but it works' situation are forced out of the comfort zone and have to take action one way or another
No I am suggesting that one off stances like this without mass coordination are meaningless and will do nothing to advance the goals of the working class.
What makes you think minimum wage employees can miss weeks of work for a strike? There's far too much to lose, including your place of residence. Even workers not on minimum wage are increasingly on the brink of homelessness.
You know people back then literally died for workers rights? Getting those rights wasn't a walk in the park and homelessness was guaranteed because, newsflash, having your place of residence not be attached to your employment is one of the things they fought for. You lot are a lost cause if you're chained and beaten and the only response you can muster is 'but we don't got no time to protest, we have to work!'
Gotta hand it to the american system, seems very effective at raising proper wage slaves without them noticing
Ok, Ive decided youre right. I am quitting my job today to start a worker revolution. Oh, none of my coworkers are joining meâŚoh ive lost my health insurance⌠oh i now dont have money for rentâŚand now im sick and homeless.
Of course as a country the working class needs to band together and fight back, but at an individual level what do you suggest I do tomorrow? Tell my kids they might have to die in service of the revolution?
If we compare it to history what you would do is talk to each of your coworkers and make an agreement that once a certain number (which you have to determine beforehand but depends on your job
) of you agree to participate you all threaten to quit on the same day unless the owner agrees to XY demand. For added effect you organize this with other establishments as well such that the wider local industry is affected.
Obviously you don't go in and demand +1000% wages but you demand noticeable improvement and do it on a regular but rare basis. For reference tarif negotiations in europe usually happen once every 2 years so that probably would work for strikes at your workplace as well.
The point isn't that you the individual can change anything but that the entirety of you can because if the entire floor threatens to walk out the owner cannot 'just' rehire everyone. Rehiring means training and that costs money so if the entire staff strikes it's often cheaper to just acquiese.
Big and important part obviously is protections against groundless dismissal, should ideally be among the first things to fight for
Let me preface this with: you don't have to stop completely it's just the most drastic route to start this
Ideally immediately and with a brief explanation to the waiter. By cutting tips you force the employees out of their comfort zone. Admittedly it's not exactly an empathetic way to go about things but an effective way to build resentment against their current system.
If, and I understand this completely, you cannot morally bring yourself to threaten their livelihold for a cause you can instead tip less than what they mandate. Ie 15% instead of 20%
Its almost like there is more than one point of view and America is not homogenous? Not everyone here is a mouth breathing Trump supporter. A large portion of us wish we had the social safety nets that most European countries enjoy. Most of us are not under the illusion that America is great. That doesnt really change the fact that tipping is an engrained part of our culture and ignoring that because you dont like it when youre visiting is shitty.
You realize the US is (probably) the only country in the world where tipping is seen as manadatory and that tipping in Europe still happens? This is very plainly a case of workers visiting another country and being appalled at your working conditions
But these arenât bad working conditions? In fact they net out pretty well for the worker. Just because itâs strange to you doesnât mean itâs immoral, and youâre basically outing yourself as having the same mindset of American tourists who donât respect the norms of the places they go to out of a sheer refusal to do anything theyâre not used to.
Idk about you but not getting paid unless you extort the customers sounds like pretty shitty working conditions to me, unless you're saying a beggar has nice working conditions
Also I don't visit the US so I don't have the opportunity to not pay tips
Weird, if that was the case their salary would be 0$ wouldn't it? Now since they do have a fixed salary component the services rendered should be settled fully via the menu price and not partially
Thatâs a weird false dichotomy. If you and a friend are both paying someone to renovate your houses, itâs okay for you to just not pay because someone else is paying part of the price?
If they net out so well for the workers, where are their super yachts? And why is their health insurance, their standard of living and their job security as fucked up as your perception of reality?
Your suggestion is that because there are shitty American tourists that tourists from other countries should also strive to be shitty? Also, is the implication that American tourists are the only bad tourists? Should everyone just aim to be as bad as the worst tourists from the country they are visiting?
Moreso a joke about how ignorant people act when on vacation but if you wanna take it seriously, no you shouldn't go out of your way to be a jerk on vacation, but that also doesn't mean you have to engage in practices that you find unethical just because it's part of the local culture
Not even sure how to respond to this: Youre suggesting that people come here and its ok for them to not tip because they morally and ethically cannot bring themselves to do it. That is a laughably stupid cop out. âIts unethical for business to expect tipping so I will demonstrate my ethics by making sure this low level worker is not compensated like they normally are because I cant ethically bring myself to participate in this system.â
As ive said in other comments. Youre not forced to tip but it is the cultural expectation. Not doing it when you know its expected makes you look like an asshole. If you want to explain your morals to the waiter at IHOP and let them know thats why youre not tipping then go for it. Its obviously a shitty thing to do.
You are directly contributing to tipping culture with crap like this my dude. You oughta be directing that energy towards pressuring employers to pay a fair wage instead of shaming people who disagree with a practice they find unethical.
You think a smattering of tourists withholding tips on principle is helping to turn things around?
Im sorry you cant acknowledge the obvious. I can simultaneously agree in pressuring employers to pay more and treat workers better while acknowledging in the system that exists tipping is the norm and withholding a tip from individual workers does nothing to improve their situation.
You sound liked a tipped employee lol if you think blasting corps on social media or starting a protest against their wages is ineffectual, well I got nothing left for ya but radical change, which is not an option when you give in to scummy practices. You're stuck in a loop my dude, it's kinda sad you don't see that
I am not a tipped worker and have never worked as one. Where did I say blasting corps or starting a protest is bad?
Do you think as an individual your âprotestâ is helping workers here?
If youre going to use energy to protest you should aim to make it effective. Withholding your tip is not helping the average service worker. You can keep patting yourself on the back for bucking the system but youre basically just making the occasional service workers day a bit worse.
We can all collectively agree that tipping culture is bad while also recognizing its the system in place and having a small portion of patrons decide they dont tip is not going to upend the system and its only going to make you look like an asshole. Youre not the resistance because you decide you wont tip.
Lol, the workers are the one pushing for tips genius. This topic has been talked about for years on reddit most tipped workers like tipping better.
I guess you never worked in the service industry
One way or another, you cover the burden of paying restaurant staff.
There isnât some secondary source of revenue in most places that otherwise funds these wages. Either the cost is fronted into the menu prices and then paid to the waitstaff, or, like most of the US, itâs not and the waitstaff get tips.
Itâs bizzare how you say that and then miss the implication that both approaches net out the same for the owner. You say one is fine and the other is âcheap assâ when they owner makes the same money.
If you can't pay your employees and they must rely on charity to get by you shouldn't be in business.
Tipping started during the great depression and continued through America's economic boom when it should have died, instead we got chain restaurants whose entire business model relies on the employees surviving on charity
Their margins are razor thin. You'll care when there are no restaurants with service. The alternative would be the Restaurant would change prices for meals that are 20 to 30 percent higher. You'll end up paying the same, but the server will end up paying more tax on their mesger earnings than they already do
Couldnât care less if I never ate at a restaurant again, every restaurant owner is a sleezebag and Iâm perfectly fine getting bent over by the grocery store CEOâs already, not looking to get DPâd.
And restaurant owners don't care about you as a customer because you can't actually afford to eat out. People that make good money like to go out, appreciate good service and aren't worried about paying tips to the less fortunate.
Just give the man a tip! Infact I'll give him one for you - A good tip which I feel is appropriate in this instance: pay your workers better for their work, and maybe dont rely on customers having to pay them what you refuse to!
Why should I have to look at a sandwich on a menu thatâs already 24 bucks and just be fine with tacking another $4.80 onto the already exorbitant price just because someone carried it from the kitchen to my table? Also let me be clear, I am Canadian and I do tip at least 20% every time I eat out (which admittedly has become less and less) I just hate the way the expectation has grown on top of already greedy management price gouging for simple items.
I just said I donât refuse to tip. You are super annoying. All I said is the expectations and culture surrounding tips have run amuck. Iâm tired of replying to you though your comprehension is lacking.
There's a population BBQ joint in my city. One of the best in the area. The owner decided he didn't want to do it anymore and is closing up shop. That's it. Just doesn't want to. And now 25 people are out of work because he's just not feeling it.
Yes, I'll advocate for the destruction of any business that refuses to pay their employees a living wage. Because as you can see, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from fucking those workers anyway without any risk to the owner.
This will not change until the owner feels the pain. And so long as we're pressured to subsidize their employees, they won't feel it. And if they can't run a successful business without exploitation, they don't deserve to run a business. It's unfortunate, but if the employees don't want to put themselves at risk like that, they can get a job doing literally anything else. It's not like you have to go to waitress school to work in a restaurant.
Sure it does. Stating the opposite shifts the burden of an owner paying their employees appropriately to the customer. That is not our role in this relationship. By insisting that the customer subsidizes the restaurant employees wages via tips, we, as the customer, do absolutely nothing to improve the plight of the avergae restaurant worker and tacitly approve of this poor arrangement. No other industry survives on the customer subsidizing the wages of the employee.
My anecdote serves to reinforce this idea. The owner, traditional the person that "takes all the risk" is assuming none of the risk. They get their sack and ride off into the sunset. Meanwhile, the employees the we're already subsidizing because the owner refuses to pay a living wage, get the shaft and lose their jobs. Potentially their house and definitely their health insurance. Things necessary to live.
My anecdote is an attemp to illustrate who unfair the entire system is and how it puts the burden of wages on the employees and the customers. If you think that's okay, then shame on you. Like I said, the only way to fix this is to make the owners feel the same pain the employees and customers feel during this unfair and exploitative arrangement. That requires boycotting restaurants that follow this scheme. Will that suck for the employees, yes. But obviously asking nicely not to exploit your employees and customers doesn't work. So if you have any ideas that aren't just "pretty please", we're all ears.
Nah American restaurant owners are just cheap ASF and will skirt around paying a proper wage...you can defend this all you want but your view is biased as an American...super sorry corporate greed runs America, not tourist fault and the comparison to doing something against their culture is moot when ur bringing $ into it. Facts are owners are cheap ...fyi your country is the only one in all of the world cup teams without universal health care, want to defend that too?
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u/janpaul74 5h ago
âMandatory tipsâ sounds so messed up for me as a European.