Tipping Is Racist and Harms Us All -- It's Past Time to Eliminate It

[Unladen Swallow]

https://inequality.org/article/tipping-is-racist-and-harms-us-all/

From emancipation, the racist practice of tipping prevailed in low-wage industries — disproportionately composed of Black workers, workers of color, and women — before subminimum wages were enshrined into law, creating a two-tiered system for wages that has been preserved as a means of racial and economic control.



Having family who work or worked in the service industries, I'm not sure I'm on board with this.

[Trueblue Texan]

1. The only way I'll stop tipping is if I stop going out...

Regardless of its origins, folks in service jobs rely on tips to pay the bills. I think the whole narrative of ending tipping is cover for tightwads. No decent human being benefiting from the service of other human beings would agree ending tipping is a good thing. When I go out with someone who gets the tip and doesn't tip enough, I always pad it. I don't care if that's rude or not. Someone is counting on that money to take care of their household.

[unblock]

4. this makes no sense. tightwads want tipping to be the norm so prices are cheap, then they save by undertipping.

the argument for no tipping is that government should ban subminimum wage pay and employers should be required to pay their employees a decent wage so that they aren't reliant on tips to survive.

this means that the prices for the actual services will have to be higher. this does not benefit the tightwad. it simply folds in a standardized tip into the actual price. it's not much different from a restaurant that puts an automatic tip in for large parties.

this is what is done in europe. tipping is optional and modest there. you can still tip by rounding up or adding something small like 5-10% for exceptional service, but no tip is fine because service workers are paid a decent wage and aren't reliant on tips to survive as they are in the u.s.


there are arguments pro and con in this one, but tightwads wanting a system where the prices for services are higher isn't one of them.

[Trueblue Texan]

7. I have been to dinner with people who don't tip the poorly paid staff...

....because they don't believe in tipping. (tight mofos--don't go out with them a 2nd time) If service people were paid a decent wage, the non-tippers might be justified. The current reality argues that tipping is necessary and proper. Until that changes, I support tipping.

[unblock]

8. Ok those are tightwads!

But by not tipping in the current system, they're abusing a system that relies on tipping. I agree that *that* is just self-serving.

I tip normally or on the generous side (Mrs. Unblock used to be a server, she trained me well), it take egregiously bad service for me to undertip -- but I still argue for an end to sub minimum wage pay and a more tipping-optional society.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. sexist too /nt

[Blues Heron]

3. tipping needs to end yesterday. You cant make people depend on the the kindness of strangers for their salary.

[chouchou]

5. Denmark, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Norway, Austria, and The Netherlands...

..and France, Italy, Spain, Greece and other countries is considered a good job with a good to very good salaries.
We're still stuck in the Hillbilly 1850's Southern reality.
(From Google)

[jimfields33]

6. I think the ones in the job should make the decision

They’re the ones experiencing it.

[FakeNoose]

10. Many of the countries you mention also give free gov't-backed healthcare

... retirement income, and free education to all of their citizens. I'm not sure what is given to the residents who don't become citizens. The governments of Europe do a great job taking care of their citizens, for the most part. Why can't we figure out how to do this?

[LymphocyteLover]

9. well, I will tip until they raise the base pay for servers

[milestogo]

11. There is restaurant tipping, and there is all the other kinds of tipping.

If you spend 90 minutes in a restaurant and they serve a table full of people, that is worth a 15-20% tip.

BUT, now we are supposed to tip because somebody filled up a coffee cup and handed it to us? Or brought a grocery order to the door? If I get $200 worth of groceries delivered, the default tip is 20% or $40. To which I say, no that is too much for something that takes a few minutes. Uber wants 20%, the hairdresser expects 20%, the dog groomer expects it... It just gets to be too much.

[mike_c]

13. all work is valuable

Until all jobs pay a dignified living wage it falls upon the rest of us to avoid exploiting our lower wage sisters and brothers by backfilling their pay to a livable level. It should be their employers' responsibility to pay them living wages, but when business owners shirk those responsibilities, are we to demand that low wage employees be further stripped of living wages by the rest of us?

[mike_c]

12. any discussion about ending tipping...

...needs to be part of a larger discussion about mandating living wages for low wage employees generally.

[Alice B.]

14. I'll also tip well until that happens but fully aware we're essentially subsidizing payroll for private enterprise.

I have too many friends and family who work/have worked in the service industry and too much respect for the work itself not to.

I'm not going to say anything new here but this is a view of my local labor market (having been a vendor to locally owned bars and restaurants and a volunteer with a civic organization).

I'm aware of the staffing struggles. Despite this being a college town, the formerly endless supply of student labor has dried up in recent years. Most of the people I see working in retail and the industry are *not* kids in their first jobs, making spending money, or retirees staying busy "because they want to."

It's people working or an actual living-living.

Yet many of the business owners I know, economic development and local government types, and conservative friends and family are still locked in the mindset that these traditionally low-wage positions are first and starter and "pin money" jobs. And there's also a general unwillingness to adapt to cultural shifts.

I watched a retail job at a downtown store go unfilled for months. The help wanted ad was a 600-point (hyperbole) bullet list of requirements, including a willingness to be available evenings and weekends, and as needed. But no mention of wages (which to me always implies minimum) or anything about what the employer had to offer. I know the employers and they're pretty good people but this ad read almost hostile to me.

I was hoping we were moving toward a broader cultural shift regarding the dignity of work and a living wage but, like many hopes, that one went out the window on election night.