You’re a customer, you don’t have a “job”. You have a bill for goods and services. You choose which goods and services you purchase. The bill presented to you at an American restaurant is calculated based on sub-minimum wages due to the tipping convention. There are some restaurants which calculate their bill with a living wage, and do not solicit tips, and this is reflected in higher prices.
By patronizing a restaurant that pays based on tipped wages, and not paying a tip, you are saving money by exploiting the system at the literal expense of the employee. Choose not to purchase from companies that secure low prices by exploitation, or write your representative to end the tipped wage laws that perpetuate that exploitation.
Just remember that the only one who suffers when you didn’t tip a tipped-wage worker, is the worker.
If a server is struggling to make enough tips to compete with minimum wage, what is stopping them from quiting that restaurant and getting a minimum wage job somewhere like retail or fast food? Most of the servers i know make A LOT more than minimum wage, some can easilly pull an extra $300 on a weekend night.
You could argue it’s kind of a gamble. You’re just betting on people tipping you and risking being paid below minimum. But in any case, it’s not relevant here as it’s not an issue in Canada, don’t most states require the employer to top up the difference?
You misunderstand. It’s not my job to subsidize their pay.
You’re a customer, you don’t have a “job”. You have a bill for goods and services. You choose which goods and services you purchase. The bill presented to you at an American restaurant is calculated based on sub-minimum wages due to the tipping convention. There are some restaurants which calculate their bill with a living wage, and do not solicit tips, and this is reflected in higher prices.
By patronizing a restaurant that pays based on tipped wages, and not paying a tip, you are saving money by exploiting the system at the literal expense of the employee. Choose not to purchase from companies that secure low prices by exploitation, or write your representative to end the tipped wage laws that perpetuate that exploitation.
Just remember that the only one who suffers when you didn’t tip a tipped-wage worker, is the worker.
If a server is struggling to make enough tips to compete with minimum wage, what is stopping them from quiting that restaurant and getting a minimum wage job somewhere like retail or fast food? Most of the servers i know make A LOT more than minimum wage, some can easilly pull an extra $300 on a weekend night.
If your justification for a behavior is that it’s fine because all the people who don’t behave that way will compensate, your behavior is unjustified.
You could argue it’s kind of a gamble. You’re just betting on people tipping you and risking being paid below minimum. But in any case, it’s not relevant here as it’s not an issue in Canada, don’t most states require the employer to top up the difference?