As Hot Air notes, Seattle is probably going to implement a $15 minimum wage. Service staff (waitresses, waiters, bartenders) are starting to balk. They are worried restaurants may implement a European style service charge (which are "less generous" and typically 10%) or management will force waiters to share more of their tips with back of the house employees.
Kshama Sawant, a socialist elected to the Seattle city council on her own $15 pledge, calls those suggestions “fear mongering” and says people who cling to tips miss the point. “We don’t want any worker to be beholden to the mood of the customer on any given day,” she says.
So I guess my advice about taking up traditional barista jobs is not as good as it was. Especially since Howard Schultz the CEO of Starbucks said his company might start cutting benefits of Baristas if the minimum wage hike goes through. But if you scroll though this Rule 5 gallery, there are bikini barista jobs that might turn out to be lucrative!
But this raises the question: are tips better for service than flat gratuities? Is it better to have a flat 18% than a tip (truth is most don't tip less than 20% anyway at restaurants). I guess we will find out.
Update:
Tips are a concern, depending on what type of establishment you are working in... Maybe this is to address the income inequality between front of the house workers and back of the house workers.
Kshama Sawant, a socialist elected to the Seattle city council on her own $15 pledge, calls those suggestions “fear mongering” and says people who cling to tips miss the point. “We don’t want any worker to be beholden to the mood of the customer on any given day,” she says.
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| Seattle Citycouncil-Member Kshama Sawant (Socialist) |
But this raises the question: are tips better for service than flat gratuities? Is it better to have a flat 18% than a tip (truth is most don't tip less than 20% anyway at restaurants). I guess we will find out.
Update:
Tips are a concern, depending on what type of establishment you are working in... Maybe this is to address the income inequality between front of the house workers and back of the house workers.
Watch unemployment hit Weimar levels in the Lefty paradise, if not by cutting staff then by businesses going under.
ReplyDeleteIt will not be that dramatic. What will happen is any business offering benefits for minimum wage workers will probably stop doing so. Prices will rise on some things and service will go down. In the end, workers will not be better off and there will be less entry level jobs. So it will cause more harm than good.
DeleteI tip 20% (rounded off) anyway because I know that that is how service staff gets paid. It has nothing to do with how wonderful they do their jobs. From management's point of view, they get tips because they are on commission sales. They directly interface with the customers and get them to buy stuff like drinks, desserts, and appetizers. So, they get a percentage of their "sales". Thus, it is totally inappropriate for them to have to split tips with backroom staff. This is about the business model and creating incentives for good performance. Good performance for a waitress is "SELL MORE STUFF".
ReplyDeleteSince most service businesses not don't get this, I would favor doing away with "tip culture" totally and expect service people to be fully paid by their employers. But I am not going to move that mountain just on my own good looks. So, we are stuck with a broken system. If a restaurant overcharges (like Starbucks), then I take it out of the tip. Eventually, the waitress gets the message and finds a job someplace with a better business model. Today, tipping is just "extra gouge" on top of the price.