Comments on: Waiters must get the tips we give them

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:12:27 +0000

“Your point is?”

That by your logic, income tax is illegitimate as well. Which is probably true:)

By: sanbikinoraion

sanbikinoraion — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:39:55 +0000

As #6, why so coy about naming your previous employer?

By: Jennie Rigg

Jennie Rigg — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:10:37 +0000

Is the solution to this (from a consumer pov) not to always tip in cash, direct to the waiter’s hand? Surely the employer doesn’t even know you’ve tipped, then?

Also, having had shop jobs, I had many people TRY to give me tips, especially at Christmas, but was not allowed to have cash on my person behind the till (instant dismissal) and any tips had to go in the till, and I would never see them again. I always told people who tried to tip me in this situation to put the money in the charity box…

By: Andrew Adams

Andrew Adams — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:48:47 +0000

Your point is?

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:14:02 +0000

A salary is a private transaction between the employer and the employee to pay for services rendered. It is totally separate from the social contract between the employee and the state and there is no reason why the state should not be bound by the same obligations as any other agent.

By: Andrew Adams

Andrew Adams — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:34:00 +0000

The Spectator article is right to make the distinction between a tip and a service charge – logically they are quite different things. However, it is totally wrong on the issue of tips being used to top up wages.

A tip is a private transaction between the customer and the waiter to reward especialy good service. It is totally separate from the employment contract between the waiter and the restaurant owner and there is no reason why the owner should not be bound by the same obligations as any other employer.

By: Chris Gilmour

Chris Gilmour — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:48:56 +0000

Are you not inclined to name (and shame) your former employer who has yet to sign up to the Fair Tips Charter? Or do you think that not naming them as being a crap employer will somehow make them more inclined to sign up?

By: Fellow Traveller

Fellow Traveller — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:04:02 +0000

…what legitimate business reason is there for an employer withholding tips from their staff?

The same reason used by all businessmen – you don’t see the Gas companies putting up the wages of their staff after they’ve raised prices do you?

You don’t work for yourself – you work as their servant, a representative. The bosses get to keep the money earned for them by your labour and decide what share you get out of it. That’s the deal.

Tipping is part of the class war – in a time of revolution – such as Spain in 1936-7 – tipping disappeared. It returned when the bosses re-established control (see Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia):

“Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy.”

By: Al

Al — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:22:12 +0000

Yes, absolutely definately. Also, it completely rips off the customer. If all the tip is being used for is topping up wages to make them legal, there is absolutely no reason at all to tip, as the company will make up any shortfall themselves. When a customer tips, he or she expects it to act as an addition to the waiter’s wage and that is what it should be. If not, then tipping will cease altogether.

By: Matt Munro

Matt Munro — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:44:13 +0000

You could argue that tips are part of the problem, in that they allow employers to pay a low wage on the basis that tips will make it up to, er, a less low wage. I worked in a shop for a while in the 1980s and no one ever gave me a tip, never really understood why some low paid workers are considered tip worthy and others not (London cabbies for example earn £50k a year on average and still expect tips, as do hairdressers, whereas postmen, who earn close to min wages, don’t). Tips are also, in theory at least, taxable income.
What’s particularly annoying in restaurants is when a discretionary “service charge” is added to the bill and will obviously go straight to the owner, not to the waiter/waitress. Service in this country is so poor nowadays that I rarely give a tip anyway.

By: Lee Griffin

Lee Griffin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:38:05 +0000

Why are waiters in businesses where the employer takes tips to pay for the wage even making any extra effort right now? I don’t disagree that it’s a bad situation that needs rectifying (I disagree wholeheartedly with the piece in the spectator) but if you know that the situation is as such then dissent through not doing the extra smiley stuff is surely a short term way of making a point about how your attitude and personality brings money in for them and thus you need treating fairly?

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:16:54 +0000

An economically literate response from another ex-restaurant worker here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/business/trading-floor/837526/waitron-units-and-tips.thtml