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Ugh, the level of disgust can't be measured. The Kalamazoo location is a few miles from my apartment. I have only been there once...not great food and the portions are massive. Far better choices in the area for breakfast if you are under 80 years old.

http://wwmt.com/news/local/local-restaurant-required-staff-to-pay-to-work

That is sick. No one should work there. All those employees should quit and find other jobs. Of course, many of them would be in bad shape until they could find other employment, but at least they wouldn't have a boss screwing them over all the time.

A lot more going on at that place than requiring employees to share their tips.

Department of Labor Wage and Hourly Division investigators found that the owners of Sophia's Pancake House were requiring servers to pay $2 an hour from their tips, failing to pay workers for time worked, failing to pay workers overtime, making employees pay for missed orders and uniforms, which dropped their pay below minimum wage.

I wonder how long it will take for the former employees to see a penny of that judgement.

Ingrates.

If they'd pulled on their bootstraps properly, they would have had no trouble living on $2.13 an hour.

I think the idea is that by pulling hard enough on your bootstraps you become a top banker or executive and make a lot more than $2.13 an hour.

(Similar in the UK, except over here it's a better idea to buy and sell property other at massive profits.)

As a European looking in, tips are cancer. It is hard to reform a broken system where the employers have little incentive to do so.

Did the owners of Amy's Bakery relocate after that Chef Ramsey show they were featured in?

Isn't that how strip clubs operate? The dancers have to pay the owner X amount of dollars to work per night.

 djones520 wrote:
Isn't that how strip clubs operate? The dancers have to pay the owner X amount of dollars to work per night.

I think they get around that by being legally classified as independent contractors, rather than employees. I feel like that fig leaf would blow away with even the lightest breeze of litigation, though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think the idea is that by pulling hard enough on your bootstraps you become a top banker or executive and make a lot more than $2.13 an hour.

(Similar in the UK, except over here it's a better idea to buy and sell property other at massive profits.)

I know, right?

Take that $2.13 an hour, buy yourself an MBA and you're golden.

 Ouze wrote:
I think they get around that by being legally classified as independent contractors, rather than employees. I feel like that fig leaf would blow away with even the lightest breeze of litigation, though.

If there were strippers ending up with $2.13 an hour, then I'd expect that case would have been fought and won a long time ago. But when the women are walking away with a pretty hefty paycheck most nights, I guess that changes things.

 =Angel= wrote:
As a European looking in, tips are cancer. It is hard to reform a broken system where the employers have little incentive to do so.

I don't see how tips are cancer when they allow servers to make a decent wage. At some places you can make multiple hundreds of dollars in a night. Working as a server or a bartender is one of the few jobs you can get without any higher education whatsoever and still make a decent wage, and it's because of the tips. Servers get paid $2.13 an hour by the restaurant. Don't mistake that as servers are only taking home $2.13 an hour. Most good servers at reputable establishments don't even take home any actual money from their hourly wage because their entire pay check is taken out in taxes, because they are taking home hundreds of dollars in tips every week.

This restaurant was conducting business practices that are straight up illegal and shouldn't be taken as the normal state of affairs in the restaurant business.

It's because employers basically use tips as an excuse to not pay waiters a decent wage.

 DarkLink wrote:
It's because employers basically use tips as an excuse to not pay waiters a decent wage.

I don't disagree, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they got rid of tips, most restaurant employers would not be making up the difference, at least nothing that would even approach the potential earnings that good servers and bartenders have currently.

It doesn't really matter why at this point. The bottom line is, servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make. If you take that away, that will very likely cease to be the case.

 Hordini wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
It's because employers basically use tips as an excuse to not pay waiters a decent wage.

I don't disagree, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they got rid of tips, most restaurant employers would not be making up the difference, at least nothing that would even approach the potential earnings that good servers and bartenders have currently.

It doesn't really matter why at this point. The bottom line is, servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make. If you take that away, that will very likely cease to be the case.

I don't think we should get rid of tips, but I do think that we should get rid of tips as a substitute for paying minimum wage.

 Hordini wrote:
servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make.

When the reason why should be because they work their jobs and get paid decently. Why should higher eduction be an obstacle to making a "decent" living, are people without a higher eduction not supposed to have decent lives? Living with dignity should be a human right, and not hinge on the whimsical generosity of others.

 d-usa wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
It's because employers basically use tips as an excuse to not pay waiters a decent wage.

I don't disagree, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they got rid of tips, most restaurant employers would not be making up the difference, at least nothing that would even approach the potential earnings that good servers and bartenders have currently.

It doesn't really matter why at this point. The bottom line is, servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make. If you take that away, that will very likely cease to be the case.

I don't think we should get rid of tips, but I do think that we should get rid of tips as a substitute for paying minimum wage.

I agree. Tips should be on top of their hourly wages.

 =Angel= wrote:
As a European looking in, tips are cancer. It is hard to reform a broken system where the employers have little incentive to do so.

We permit tips because our labor laws permit companies to pay people who get tips less than minimum wage. The way it works is, you make X per hour (where X is less than the state minimum wage) and make enough money in tips that, on average, you are making as much as or more than minimum wage. Of course, this is not always the reality.

 Psienesis wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
As a European looking in, tips are cancer. It is hard to reform a broken system where the employers have little incentive to do so.

We permit tips because our labor laws permit companies to pay people who get tips less than minimum wage. The way it works is, you make X per hour (where X is less than the state minimum wage) and make enough money in tips that, on average, you are making as much as or more than minimum wage. Of course, this is not always the reality.

Sort of. The way I understand it is that at the end of the day your tips get counted up, and you either get paid all your tips or minimum wage(whichever is higher).

 Smacks wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make.

When the reason why should be because they work their jobs and get paid decently. Why should higher eduction be an obstacle to making a "decent" living, are people without a higher eduction not supposed to have decent lives? Living with dignity should be a human right, and not hinge on the whimsical generosity of others.

They do get paid decently. Good servers at reputable restaurants make much more than minimum wage.

I never said people without higher education are not supposed to have decent lives. Exactly the opposite. I'm just pointing out that being a server or a bartender is one of the few jobs you can get without higher education and make a decent living. I'm not sure how you extrapolated from my post about the fact that there aren't as many decent paying jobs available without some sort of higher education, but that serving and bartending is one of them, to mean that I'm suggesting that people without a higher education are not supposed to have decent lives. Unless you have some sort of axe to grind?

They make a decent living because they work their jobs and get paid decently. Most of that pay comes from tips. I'm not sure why it really matters whether or not that pay comes from the employer or from the customer. At the end of the day, it's going to be coming from the customer anyway, because restaurants would raise their prices if they were forced to raise hourly wages, and there is almost no way that they would raise hourly wages enough to make up for lack of tips.

I wouldn't consider tipping the US to be "whimsical generosity" either. Maybe that's the case in the UK, but tipping culture in the US is decidedly different than in many European countries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
It's because employers basically use tips as an excuse to not pay waiters a decent wage.

I don't disagree, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they got rid of tips, most restaurant employers would not be making up the difference, at least nothing that would even approach the potential earnings that good servers and bartenders have currently.

It doesn't really matter why at this point. The bottom line is, servers and bartenders can make a decent living with no higher education, and the reason is because of the tips they make. If you take that away, that will very likely cease to be the case.

I don't think we should get rid of tips, but I do think that we should get rid of tips as a substitute for paying minimum wage.

I agree. Tips should be on top of their hourly wages.

Well, technically they are paid on top of hourly wages. It's just that the hourly wages are lower.

 Hordini wrote:
I wouldn't consider tipping the US to be "whimsical generosity" either.

The customer is under no legal obligation to tip, so the server has no legal right to expect payment. Other than a vague threat that someone might spit in your food if you return to the restaurant, there is really no incentive for the customer to tip, that I can see, other than generosity.

 Hordini wrote:
it's going to be coming from the customer anyway, because restaurants would raise their prices if they were forced to raise hourly wages.

That's just a lie, there are numerous ways a business might find money for wages without raising prices. Reducing profits and other operating costs, being notable examples. Tipping just allows business to pad their profits at the expense of employees, by making out it is the responsibility of customers to ensure servers receive a decent wage, which it clearly isn't. It is the responsibility of employers and legislators.

 sebster wrote:
If there were strippers ending up with $2.13 an hour, then I'd expect that case would have been fought and won a long time ago. But when the women are walking away with a pretty hefty paycheck most nights, I guess that changes things.

I'm not convinced. As I may or may not have mentioned here before, my wife bartended her way through grad school at a strip club. There are a lot of things about that employment situation that make you go, "How the hell is that legal?"

She wasn't a dancer, so she didn't have to deal with any of it, and got her 15 an hour plus tips without trouble, but the stuff for the dancers was unbelievable. $75 a night stage fee to the house, 30% of lap dance fees to the house, $200 re-hiring fee if you quit and then decide you want to come back, $100 fee if you miss a scheduled shift. Sure, some women were able to make bank, but there were some nights where some girls went home owing the club money. As Ouze said, it's in a sketchy independent contractor gray area.

Strippers in San Francisco and I think a few other places have famously unionized, but most haven't, and I'm not aware of any labor board complaints that've made national news. I suspect the stigma of not only admitting to being a stripper, but admitting to being a stripper who wasn't "good enough" at her job to routinely make enough to get over the exploitative hurdle of fees at a given club keeps complaints from rolling in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
I wouldn't consider tipping the US to be "whimsical generosity" either.

The customer is under no legal obligation to tip, so the server has no legal right to expect payment. Other than a vague threat that someone might spit in your food if you return to the restaurant, there is really no incentive for the customer to tip, that I can see, other than generosity.

Social pressure is pretty strong. I know a guy who wound up with the callsign "Pinky" in reference to Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs due to his anti-tipping views.

Relapse wrote:
Did the owners of Amy's Bakery relocate after that Chef Ramsey show they were featured in?

HAHAHAHAHAHA I was thinking this

As a UK resident, we don't pay tips usually in our country so waiters and stuff always get paid at least minimum wage. Cross the channel to France and it's a different kettle of fish.

 Smacks wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
I wouldn't consider tipping the US to be "whimsical generosity" either.

The customer is under no legal obligation to tip, so the server has no legal right to expect payment. Other than a vague threat that someone might spit in your food if you return to the restaurant, there is really no incentive for the customer to tip, that I can see, other than generosity.

Also, if you're in a tourist area, you're at the mercy of foreigners who simply don't expect to do it. Tipping bar staff, for example; other than the odd old geezer telling the barman to "buy one for himself", it's just not done in the UK. I certainly wouldn't expect to do it if I was on holiday in the USA (well, I would now, but you know what I mean).

Conversely, it's bad manners to tip in Japan - it implies that you think the staff are only doing a good job because you bribed them. I was in a bar in Japan once where there was some mis-communication between my group and the staff over the bill - we couldn't figure out if we'd underpaid or overpaid. In the end we waited until the waitress went back to the bar to do something and we ran away.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Tipping bar staff, for example; other than the odd old geezer telling the barman to "buy one for himself", it's just not done in the UK. I certainly wouldn't expect to do it if I was on holiday in the USA (well, I would now, but you know what I mean).

I got caught out with that on my first evening in New York. I went to a bar with my friend, and bought a round of drinks. I gave the bargirl $20 and she made some joke about it coming to $19 (which I didn't get), then I was like "thanks" and took my dollar change. I think I probably got a dirty look, though I didn't notice it... Then my friend told me off and explained that I'm supposed to tip the bar staff. So I put the dollar on the bar, but then she didn't take it, so then I told her to take the dollar and that it was for her (apparently this isn't the "done thing" either). After that I thought I was good, but then later I got told off again for tipping people in the supermarket, apparently they don't get tips...

 Frozocrone wrote:

As a UK resident, we don't pay tips usually in our country so waiters and stuff always get paid at least minimum wage. Cross the channel to France and it's a different kettle of fish.

Tipping seems to be quite common in the UK, I certainly always pay 10%, almost always in cash so that the staff actually gets it, if the service/food was satisfactory. Its only ever done in restaurants with table service though.

We permit tips because our labor laws permit companies to pay people who get tips less than minimum wage.

Why is this though? Are tips taxed?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:

As a UK resident, we don't pay tips usually in our country so waiters and stuff always get paid at least minimum wage. Cross the channel to France and it's a different kettle of fish.

Tipping seems to be quite common in the UK, I certainly always pay 10%, almost always in cash so that the staff actually gets it, if the service/food was satisfactory. Its only ever done in restaurants with table service though.

The difference being, that in the USA a 10% tip is really stingy, even for poor service.

 Ratius wrote:

We permit tips because our labor laws permit companies to pay people who get tips less than minimum wage.

Why is this though? Are tips taxed?

Yes. They are taxable income.

 Hordini wrote:
They do get paid decently. Good servers at reputable restaurants make much more than minimum wage.

They're by far the minority though. There's some interesting history to tipping and the minimum wage, and as often happens in the US, race and gender are factors. Essentially, when the minimum wage was set in the 30's, it did not include two broad classes of people: domestic live in servants, or employees that worked mostly for tips. That those employees were mostly black people or immigrants was a coincidence, of course.

Everybody knows somebody that cleans up on tips. But most tipped employees work in lousy dinners, family restaurants, and lower end places. Their tips are low, and they also tend to have additional duties, which means that the ability to hit the minimum wage is tenuous. Tipped employees are more likely than other workers to be women and/or minorities.