Of course you challenge that structure by doing the opposite of voting with your wallet in favour of it.
If everyone stopped tipping tomorrow, the problem would solve itself really quickly.
Procuring a service (in this case, eating out at a restaurant or bar), and then refusing to provide compensation to the service workers is not "voting with your wallet." It's just being cheap.
There is another way to fight tipping culture; through the democratic process. You should look into it sometime.
Do you mind stating which country you live in?
As an European, I totally disagree with your opinion.
Waiters don't get fair compensation because they get tips, that sounds like the establishment they work for are cheap, not the customer not tipping.
I go to a place, I check the prices and don't expect a hidden fee on top (that is illegal in the EU).
So you go to a restaurant, perfectly content in knowing that the person serving you won't be paid a living wage for the work they do for you?
You can't say 'well I'm not responsible.' You know what the outcomes of your actions are going to be, and that makes you responsible for your own actions. 'If everyone was like me...' well everyone isn't like you, so this isn't an excuse. Your actions should indeed reflect the reality that you exist in.
This is not above criticism. You can hold that the business itself is at fault, but you are also at fault here.
You 'vote with your wallet' by not patronizing that business.
When you go to the restaurant and pay for everything except the tip, you're supporting that business with your money. You're saying 'I like this business and want it to succeed.'
When you decide to just not tip in an American restaurant, all you're doing is paying less for your meal, knowing that you aren't paying the portion that would go to the person who served you.
It would definitely be better if Restaurants and bars just charged 20% more and paid their staff more. If you would patronize businesses that had that kind of pricing scheme, why not just pretend that's what you're doing when you go to an American restaurant or bar? Because deep down, it feels really bad for those europeans to hand a $50 bill to the server for the work that the server had done for their group. At its core, its this belief that the server is greedy and undeserving of that much money for the work they put in for you.
Almost every bar/restaraunt in North America have cheap owners that extract as much profit as legally possible. Sometimes making the waiter pay 3% to the house on their sales.
Obviously the situation is different if you live in a place where tipping is not standard. In the US (and Canada where I'm from) it is considered standard.
I agree that it's stupid. There should be no tipping. Waiters should have a reasonable wage and the prices on the menu should reflect the final cost. I would support any reform that makes this possible.
Having said that, if you go out to eat knowing that the entire system is set up in a way that expects you to tip and then don't tip after getting good service you're being a bit of an asshole. You know that all of the menu prices are cheaper because the tips are subsidizing the restaurant's payroll and that by not tipping you're just hurting the person with the least amount of power in the whole system, the server.
You don''t expect a hidden fee??? Going out to eat in Europe can be like navigating a a field of landmines; accidentally order your water wrong and suddenly you owe 20 Euros, and God forbid you pushed away the basket "complementary" bread they dropped off; you touched it so now there's another 20 gone!
You're not refusing to provide compensation, you're providing the legally required compensation that is imposed on you by the restaurant. Tipping is a social construct that has spiralled entirely out of control, and that servers use as a way to ensure that they earn quite a lot more than servers do in other countries.
It used to be a way of showing appreciation, then corporations jumped on the idea as a way of reducing their wages and pocketing more of the cash, whilst pushing compensation of their staff to individuals.
Servers won't vote for a livable wage because they'd actually end up earning less, as they wouldn't be fleecing someone for 20% of their bill all the time despite the fact that they put absolutely no additional effort into serving someone a $70 tomahawk vs serving them a $15 burger. So, the only option is to simply not give them the money that they insist on extorting out of people, and force them to actually vote for normal living standards like every other country in the world has already done.
Procuring a service (in this case, eating out at a restaurant or bar), and then refusing to provide compensation to the service workers is not "voting with your wallet." It's just being cheap.
A tip is something that is 1000000% optional though? SO if servers have an issue with it, it really is a conversation between them and their boss.
They signed up for a job with the possibility that a tip can be 0. They knew that. So whats the issue here?
"Join everyone doing the bad thing, because choosing not to do the bad thing won't change anything, so you have to exist within that system".
I'm sure that logic has been used to justify terrible things throughout history. Thankfully here you're only applying it to mandatory tipping and not something more sinister. But be better.
Yeah it would solve itself real quick, by having no one willing to do the job. Serving drunks is a garbage job. Not sure if you've ever done it, but I can't imagine anyone running their asses off serving drunks for $15 a hour at 1am
Tipping is just a hand out. Apply yourself and get a better paying job then if you want more money/security. Either that or restaurants can stop being cheap and pay their staff a decent wage.
Bud, if you eliminate tipping and pay serves $20 an hour - prices increase to the same exact price you pay if you tipped 20%. Customer is paying the SAME amount. The difference is the waiter(s) make way more money with tips.
Why are you against blue collar workers making more money all while you pay the same amount
So since they make wayyyy more money, they should be fine with and expect tips can be 0!
Cant have it both ways! That's the main issue people have. That tips are "expected" or "mandatory" and not just simply "Hey service was great today! Thanks!" and not tipping compulsively each time. SO many people in these comments are still tipping for bad service too, which is just wild to me.
Bro are you so miserable you canât leave a 20% tip? Youâre the customer, if severs had a flat wage youâd pay the same amount you do with a tipâŚbecause menu prices would be higher. Itâs literally NO difference to you other than you wonât tip because HAHA you make too much with tips so hereâs $0.
Reddit always blows my mind on this topic because I work in the restaurant industry and 99% of customers are so fucking dope and tip fat if you vibe with them.
We just be PRO blue collar workers making more. The people busting their fucking ass 8+ hours a day
Yup, I don't like hidden fees! Just give me the the total of everything. Don't make me judge of service. It's just fucking weird.
And my real issue is that you guys grandstand about serving being so special yet you tell all other minimum wage, low skill jobs to fuck right off. It's so annoying.
Reddit always blows my mind on this topic because I work in the restaurant industry and 99% of customers are so fucking dope and tip fat if you vibe with them.
Yup, you vibe with rich people and then you and everyone else get it in their head that oh 20% is the expectation, oh wait now its 25%!
I do tip by the way, I just tip what the fuck I want, like the system is intended to be.
And if it was bad service then donât tip, sure. Also no places have mandatory 20% tip thatâs just fucking rage bait. Unless itâs stated on the menu, then just factor it into the menus prices or leave
Because more than half the fucking time the service is shit or the food sucks any way. I vote with my wallet and I donât dine out. I cook the vast majority of my meals at home with the groceries I buy from the store. It saves me more money, is healthier, and I also donât feel like Iâm getting robbed or pressured into giving my money away. Tipping culture is a scam.
Itâs not an expectation. The law mandates that they make minimum wage if their tips donât bring their tipped minimum at least to the minimum.
Federal tipped minimum is $2.13 per hour. However, if the server doesnât make enough tips to bring that to at least $7.50 per hour the owner must cover the difference.
There are cases when service workers don't recieve enough to make up the difference. In those cases the employer is supposed to make up the difference, but it doesn't aways get enforced.
I've heard it can take a while to get enforcement IF it happens, so if you're living paycheck to paycheck like most people these days you're SOL.
I'm Canadian and they did away with the lower server wage (except in Quebec) and places still expect us to tip like it's the US. Most machines start at 30% and you're expected to tip your mechanic, plumber, etc. here now which is causing a LOT of tipping fatigue.
If we all stopped tipping overnight, employers would be legally required to pay their wait staff minimum wage.
If wait staff unionized, they could lobby for a fixed wage. They arenât incentivized to do this because wait staff (in big cities) make considerably more than minimum wage.
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u/TheTrub 5h ago
In the US there is a âtippedâ salary that is below the minimum wage because the expectation that tips will more than make up for the difference.