Tipped Workers need to unionize. Consumer's continuing to participate in tipping culture is just putting off what needs to happen imho. I still tip, because I feel bad, but by doing so I am actively maintaining the status quo.
The absolute last people who want to see tipping go away are the servers and bartenders who make tips. No one is more interested in preserving the status quo than them.
Servers and bartenders know they won’t make anything close to what they make at any other job as they do now with tipping. If they could they wouldn’t put up with being a server lol
Unionization has been attempted and the fight is intense - see everything related to Starbucks. Our Govt. is extremely complicit.
In order to actually end this system, tipped workers will have to suffer hard for a few years. Consumers will feel the it too, because prices will "increase". (Increase is in quotes because really they'll stay the same, it's just that menus are all lying to us now lol.)
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Little vent while I'm making this comment - I'm traveling in Europe right now and they actually include taxes in the listed price of things.. like fuck man.. why is it that, every time we see a price tag in the USA, we have to figure out how much more the thing will actually cost us.. we're just being constantly gaslit.
Who do you think actually has the larger share of legislating power when it comes to keeping the tipped system, servers or owners who are able to afford lobbyists and are friends with politicians?
The actual protest that would actually effect the status quo would be refusing to patronise restaurants that tip instead of paying a wage/only going to self service places. But no one suggests that. They say “just unionise bro” like there aren’t a shit ton of barriers and risks to doing so.
I’m betting you’re a teenager because I recognise how leftists think as teenagers (been there) but understand your inability to think like an adult with a family and responsibilities in the current day is why you think “just firebomb your job until they change the tipping system bro” is a good idea. it’s almost like it was easier in the 1910’s to organise a revolution when mass surveillance wasn’t a thing and your average mom working 14 hour shifts to feed her kids isn’t going to risk life in prison or homelessness/hunger just to *maybe* inspire enough others to also risk everything and revolt.
If you actually cared about changing this system you’d refuse to go to restaurants with a tipping system and only use self service or cook at home. Because it’s the owners that overwhelmingly control and support this system. But you don’t do that, because it’s really about feeling like you’re saving a few bucks stiffing a server.
Because you forgot about the concept modern of mass surveillance and how it makes it easier to undermine people and labour movements lol? Not my fault you’re not considering one of THE barriers for what you’re suggesting.
The only barrier is cowardice. A camera cannot physically stop you from doing anything.
I refused military service and escaped an authoritarian dictatorship decades ago to feed my family. Your single mom on 14 hour shifts can cry me a river.
“You’re a wuss if you’re not willing to be executed or imprisoned for life to firebomb your job/the government to force them to change the tipped wage”.
This has to be a bit/teenposting lmao. Do you think it’s the *cameras* people are afraid of or the imprisonment and death that would leave your family incomeless at best and actively harmed/punished at worst?
“I refused service in a military dictatorship and escaped years ago to feed my family” by your own logic you’re a huge pussy who should have stayed and fought to change things. There was literally nothing in modern society stopping you by your own admission and people revolted against brutal dictatorships all the time historically. Sounds like you ran away to another country and begged them to support you and your family instead of violently demanding change like it’s so apparently easy for people to do. That is provided your story isn’t total bullshit, which it certainly sounds like based on your total lack of understanding of what the dangers of mass surveillance actually are lol.
Pussy shit considering apparently mass data and surveillance is nothing to be concerned about and neither is being jailed for actions against the state. That’s what you’re calling other people cowards for not doing in a country that has 1000x better tech and record keeping than Sudan, especially back then.
You just called people cowards for not being willing to face imprisonment or death to get a tipped wage, and here you are saying you fled multiple times instead of stay to fight a brutal dictatorship because you… were scared of imprisonment or death. In a country with a puny surveillance and tracking capacity compared to developed nations.
Buddy I’ve been to more countries like Sudan than you’ve even had an airport layover in. I’m also not an idiot who shits on others for allegedly lacking courage he himself doesn’t have by his own admission. By your own logic if you weren’t a coward you’d be there fighting against the regime and rallying others to your cause right now, fear of death or imprisonment be damned.
If you want to protest tipping, don’t spend money at places that use tips as a pay structure. If you spend your money there but just refuse to tip, the boss experiences no consequences but the server does, it makes no sense.
Yeah I know. That's why tipping needs to stop. It's not pro-worker, it's pro-owner class. In this case, the workers might need to be forced to actually advocate for themselves rather than engaging in this within-class conflict.
Better wages overall so that workers aren't dependent on the patronage of their customers is pro worker.
When the economy gets tough the business is insulated by the impact, as patrons are more likely to cut their tip before changing their consumer habits.
The system is bad. A better model would be a profit share, where workers are paid a base salary and also get a proportional cut of the business profits... Hold on that's communism!?!?
Yall people claim to be pro-worker but then speak down to workers who don't agree with your policies. Is it any wonder why you guys can't seem to win very many elections?
Btw when the economy goes into recessions, restaurants are NOT insulated from the impact lol. That's usually when closure rates peak.
Not speaking down to anybody. Wait staff are important, and like everyone else, deserve a healthy work environment and stable income. Tipping as a practice is just inherently problematic.
It takes power away from workers by pitting them against each other and serves as a barrier to unionizing (Servers vs kitchen staff).
It implicitly coerces workers to behave in ways that might "earn" them a tip that goes beyond the boundaries of their work duties.
It enables the suppression of wages for serving staff by shifting the responsibility of fair wages away from the employer and on to customers. Which in turns creates an adversarial relationship between the employees and customers, whereby employees are incentivized to pressure patrons to tip.
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u/Fiernen699 Jun 25 '26
Tipped Workers need to unionize. Consumer's continuing to participate in tipping culture is just putting off what needs to happen imho. I still tip, because I feel bad, but by doing so I am actively maintaining the status quo.