1y ago

Got tipping rage? This barista reveals what it's like to be behind the tip screen

www.npr.org /2023/07/17/1187275511/tipping-minimum-wage-tips-tip-screen

Excerpt from the article:

Schenker says that after his years in the service industry, he has watched tipping evolve into a major part of his pay.
"If there is some means of tipping that's available to you, that should signal to you that workers there aren't being paid enough," says Schenker. "Tipping is sort of an acknowledgment of that fact."
To Schenker, customers who don't tip are not understanding that businesses treat tips as a baked-in part of workers' wages.
"They subsidize lower prices by paying employees less," he says. "If you aren't tipping, you are taking advantage of that labor."

He was so close... Especially for someone who says himself does not make much money.

News @lemmy.world

Got tipping rage? This barista reveals what it's like to be behind the tip screen

www.npr.org /2023/07/17/1187275511/tipping-minimum-wage-tips-tip-screen

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109 comments

What is going on with the comments here? Tipping is great for the worker. It allows me to sell my labor directly to consumers without the ownership class taking a cut as middleman.
Frankly, I have to reemphasize what the author said: Not tipping changes nothing for the owner; it only exploits the laborer.
- Tips shouldn’t be the main source of income. It should be a bonus for good work. Tipping culture in the us is getting crazy compared to Europe. The base salary should be enough to be able to live on.
  
  Sounds like you're operating off how you think tipping should work, and not the organic system that's actually in place.
  Being paid by the consumer rather than the restaurant means my loyalty is to the consumer, not the restaurant. And that's a good thing.
  
  If your place of work has chosen to pay you so poorly that it's now my fault that I've failed to supply you an adequate wage for your work in an industry where service is not a big component (the bakery employee bagging up some cookies for me is not getting a tip no matter how awkward their PoS system tries to make it - delivery drivers and waiters obviously are a different story) then I'm simply not supporting your employer and I genuinely hope others follow they go out of business, well aware that that fact is the reason they stopped getting customers.
  You're screwed one way or the other unfortunately, but I'd rather we send a clear message to the people actually responsible for this awful situation you're stuck in where you have to rely on the generosity of customers to make a decent living, than continuing to subsidize their terrible business practices and allow this cycle of abuse to continue not only unabated, but actively financially supported. This can't be the norm everywhere. Arguably it shouldn't be the norm even in aforementioned businesses where it's long been accepted as the norm already. You and I both know your idea of this being "selling labor directly without the ownership class taking a cut" is a falsehood, because their cut is coming from your base wages, while enabling customers to effectively 'not pay' for your labor, with nothing you can do to prevent that because you're not in control of what you earn.
  I would be 1000% in favor of people having that power to sell their labor directly and name their prices. But it's this duplicitous system that doesn't allow the laborer any control, while stealing from them, raising prices without the ability to be up-front and honest about what something is going to cost. The only reason you're mad at customers and not your employer, is you feel you have the power to change one, and not the other.
  
  Right, and this is a place to talk about work reform.
  
  Yeah, but "reform" has the connotation of "making things better" and also "working within the current system". Scrapping a working system for the sake of ideological purity ain't it.
  
  And in the article, the barista mentioned not making more than $30,000 a year. If minimum wage were higher, around $15-$20 then the barista would make more than $30,000 a year with no awkward tipping moments. Sounds reform within the current system with no tipping and “scraping the whole system”. No please don’t complain that my latte cost more, that’s been a straw man since the beginning of minimum wage.
- I'll reemphasize the point, I feel, other posts are making, but you might be to close to see it.
  The burden of paying the laborer is 100% on the owner. The idea of making customers tip and saying "That's how it is now and if you don't tip you hurt the laborer" is a false statement. The burden is still on the owner. Period. When you keep stressing the system with underpaid workers and expect customers (who are also underpaid workers) to pay for that then it hurts EVERYONE.
  You are explaining that it hurts the workers. I got it. It hurts EVERYONE because the owners are trying to move their burden to us.
  I guess what I'm trying to say is, direct your blame at the correct groups. Having the customers and the staff mad at each other and blaming each other distracts from the actual cause of these frustrations.
  
  I'm only mad at those who are trying to disrupt the system that lets me support a family of five on one income. There is ONE industry that's figured out a way to make a living wage work for everybody and I think that's worth defending.
  Getting rid of tipping would mean higher prices for the consumer, worse service, lower pay for workers, and for what? Because the owners "should" be paying? Worse outcomes for the sake of an ideological nitpic.
  
  If you are making enough to support a family of five then maybe I should switch careers. Damn.
  For the record, I know the system is already in place and I tip accordingly. There appears to be an uptick on what I would consider unwarranted tips. If I'm coming in the pick up food, what service am I tipping? The front don't share tips with the back. I only wanted work out of the back of the house.
  This push for higher percentage tips is crazy too. I've seen 20%-30% range as a "normal" suggestion on the receipt.....
  No the system, that I spoke of earlier said 20% is for amazing super outstanding service. 10% is if they just show up and bring food. The range should be in-between that instead of trying to push the percentage higher and then producing opinion articles saying if you don't tip then you are part of the problem. No the problem is still the owners. Always have been.
  
  Adam Ruins Everything explains it nicely; it really needs to be the responsibility of the business to pay their workforce. https://youtu.be/q_vivC7c_1k
- It lets the owner continue to pay employees ahit wages because they don't leave to get higher paying jobs elsewhere. It is an end run around their obligation to pay a fair wage by tugging at the heartstrings of people who buy into tipping as a solution to underpayment workers.
  Servers deserve tips as long as they have the shitty exemption to minimum wage, but someone working the register at a convenience store or even a batista at a coffee shop doesn't.
  Do you tip underpaid janitors, cooks, delivery drivers, child care workers, cashiers at grocery stores, or fast food workers?
  
  Yes, I tip baristi, delivery drivers, and fast food workers. And daycare teaxhers, and my garbage-pickers too.
  
  So you say that you tip people you interact with, but not janitors, cooks, or workers at grocery stores.
  Do you see how tipping is not a solution to low wages in general even if you think it helps the people you see and interact with?
  
  A cogent point, but nobody is saying tipping is, or should be, a solution to low wages. Tipping in the restaurant industry is an evolved, organic things that fills a specific niche. I don't think copy-pasting that onto other industries will help workers there; but I also don't think copy-pasting the compensation system of other industries onto restaurants will help servers. I think it can only hurt us.
  
  but nobody is saying tipping is, or should be, a solution to low wages.
  The man being interviewed in the article is literally making this exact argument.
  
  Having read the article, no, he isn't. He's saying that a tip interface is a sign that the employee is being underpaid, but multiple interviewees (the barista and the economist) note that tipping is an incentive that doesn't fix the underpayment issue.
- It makes it optional whether or not to pay you for your labor, which works out to a "not an asshole tax" where nice customers subsidize both the business and people who don't tip. It also creates artificial class divisions between service workers. Why is a barista getting a 15% bonus while a 7-11 clerk isn't? (Hint: look at the demographics of each)
- Nah fam. Your wage is between you and the employer. The cost of coffee, in this case, is between me and the owner. People should be paid a liveable wage off top and not need to ask the customer to cover your wage twice, once with paying for coffee and the second with the tip.
- The entire history of tipping has roots in slavery. It’s also not as common most other places in the world. People in some countries would take great offense to being offered a tip, as it would suggest they’re needing extra help.
  Tipping is not guaranteed income; yet “income,” is the entire purpose of having a job. If you go to work to earn $X as to be able to pay your bills and just have any standard of living at all, you need to have a certain minimum in order to continue meeting that standard.
  We’ve passed too many business owner friendly laws in this country. The fact that “tipped employees” have a lower minimum wage is why business owners have been implementing payment systems that offer an option to tip. It’s the business owner NOT paying fair wages. They try to pass the responsibility off to customers.
  Business owners that are doing this are taking advantage of everyone in the cycle. The only way to break the cycle is to break the system. Don’t tip unless you’re getting service where someone actually brings you something. Walking something up to the counter you’re standing at should not justify tipped wages.
- At a glance, this makes sense. As a worker, I get compensated for my work directly by the total of customers I serve.
  In practice, however, tipping being optional means that there will always be people who tip less than is appropriate, or not at all. I would guess that it's more likely for those undertippers to be people who are disconnected with the reality of being a service worker who depends on tips, e.g., people who are already wealthy. Which means that the livelihood of tipped workers depends more on less wealthy people (those who have an understanding of the position the service worker is in).
  The effect here is that less wealthy customers pay more for their services, and more wealthy customers pay less. Yet another shifting of wealth from the poor to the rich.
  Elimination of tipping brings this into a fairer (though still not completely fair) balance.
- Since you are not able to set your own rate prior to settling the bill, you are not selling your labor to consumers at all. You are depending on the arbitrary mood of the consumer to possibly offset the insufficient wage your employer is paying you.
  
  Except the rate IS set. Almost everyone knows what the going tip percentage is. I can manage my income just fine on this expectation, and consumers can manage their costs. The lack of a fee schedule and enforcement mechanism don't change the mechanics of the interaction.
  
  Except the rate IS set
  Correct. The rate is 0% and it is up to the charity of the customer to do anything more since, as you say, there is a lack of an enforcement mechanism. I am happy you are able to manage your income on the expectation of tips, but many tipped workers are not in your enviable position.
- Ah the age old misconception...
  Minimum wage is the minimum for everyone, by federal law. The employer can only pay less if wage + tips < minimum wage. And that shit is pretty heavily enforced.... when reported.
  Problem is, it's in neither the employer nor the employee's interests for you to know this; they both prefer blaming the customer.
  There are other minimum wage jobs that are not tipped. Servers and stuff whose wage is the minimum should accept that minimum wage, ask for better pay, or fight for the minimum wage to be increased (for everyone), instead of trying to guilt trip the customers into paying them more.
  
  Servers don't typically blame the guests or have an adversarial attitude towards them. The ones that do don't last. The bulk of any adversarial attitude, at every place I've worked in the two decades I've been waiting tables, is directed at management. Tables sometimes stiff us, but mgmt are the ones out here setting shitty schedules and commiting wage theft.
- I’ve never worked a tip-driven job, but when talking with people who do, I’ve never met anyone working a tip-driven job who wanted tips to be gone or blamed the employer for it. It’s starting to feel to me like the people who are against tipping culture tend to be people who have never experienced it from the inside.
  I don’t disagree that it’s an awkward setup, I don’t love the idea of it either. But I’ll take my cues from the people I’ve met who know better about it than I do. And it seems they seem to tend to agree with you.
  
  I relied upon tips for ten years, and this is as clear as day to me: Tipping makes the customer a scapegoat.
  This is a clear cut case of the (intentionally) adversarial relationship created between customer and employee being used to shield the root cause - the low paying employer.
  If work were compensated appropriately, tipping would not be necessary. In order to get to that, we need the workers to assess blame appropriately.
  Unfortunately, unless the workers are able to do that, they will continue to incorrectly blame customers for their inability to earn a living wage.
  If you want to see this adversarial relationship in action - visit the forums where DoorDash drivers and customers discuss the issue.
  The only way a customer can help to force the employers hand is to stop tipping - which will negatively impact those who rely upon tips before they turn on their low-paying employers. Only then will things change without a federal law mandating a thriving wage.
  
  What job were you doing? I’m realizing I may have confirmation bias, because all the people I asked about it were in the restaurant / bar service industry, so my conclusions probably only apply there.
  You mentioned DoorDash, and I’m realizing I never asked anybody who works for one of those “sharing economy” monsters. I can totally believe that for them, it’s more likely to be a wage escaping scheme, since wage escaping is, well, kinda their business model in the first place. Am I assuming right that you were working for one of those?
  Thanks for that, it’s definitely helping me getting a fuller picture.

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