Paying a Fair Wage Not Dependent on Tips

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/opinion/letters/tips-wages.html

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To the Editor:

Re “The Tipping System Is Immoral,” by David Brooks (column, Oct. 25):

Tipping is a big con perpetrated by restaurant owners on both servers and customers. Tipping gives discretion to the customer to reward a good dining experience or punish a bad one. But why should a server get paid less because the kitchen is slow or the food is unpleasant? And more to the point, why are servers forced to endure the whims of customers in order to receive a fair wage?

Restaurant servers, like everyone else, ought to be fairly paid for the service they provide. Their wages should be determined in advance through a negotiation with their employer, and not be dependent on the generosity and subjective experience of customers.

It is unfair to require servers to behave obsequiously in the hope of getting a fair wage. Tipping is simply part of the exploitation of unskilled work.

Jeff KramerBrooklyn

To the Editor:

David Brooks writes that “in a world of rising economic inequality, a 30 to 50 percent tip is a small but direct way to redistribute money to those who are working hard to earn a living.” I have seen tipping guidelines go from 10 percent to 15 percent to 20 percent. Now a 30 percent standard? This is obscene.

It shifts the burden of paying a living wage from the business owner to the customer. It encourages tax avoidance. And it makes the valuation of labor dependent upon the whims of each customer. In an age of almost universal credit card use, we do not even know that the tip money is finding its way to the employee.

The solution lies in decent minimum wage laws and reasonable graduation of tax rates. Without these measures, it is no wonder that attempts to eliminate tipping have met with resistance.

Michael SelzerWynnewood, Pa.

To the Editor:

On behalf of thousands of tipped workers who fight for One Fair Wage — requiring all employers to pay tipped workers a full minimum wage, with tips on top — I couldn’t agree more with David Brooks that relying solely on tipping to earn a living in America is abominable.

Tipped workers use food stamps at nearly double the rate of other workers and have more than twice the poverty rate of the rest of the American work force. Raising their wages to minimum wage with tips on top would dramatically reduce their reliance on public assistance. Perhaps most important, it would reduce incidents of sexual harassment from customers, and narrow the racial and gender pay gap in the restaurant and service industry.

But Mr. Brooks incorrectly described the policy efforts to address these issues. My organization led ballot measures in Washington, D.C., and Maine not to phase out tipping but rather to phase out the subminimum wage for tipped workers. The seven states, including California, that have One Fair Wage have higher restaurant industry job growth rates, higher tipping averages, and one half the rate of sexual harassment as the states with a subminimum wage for tipped workers.

These two ballot measures were reversed by politicians who received campaign donations from the restaurant industry. Fortunately, there is a movement of tipped and subminimum-wage workers to enact One Fair Wage that is gaining traction nationwide.

Saru JayaramanOakland, Calif.The writer is president of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

To the Editor:

David Brooks brings up some important points, and certainly in diners and small restaurants tipping as generously as possible is an excellent way to help service staff make ends meet. However, I absolutely take issue with the notion that I should “always, always, always leave a tip in a hotel room.” Four Seasons, Marriott or Accor should expect that I pay their cleaning staff extra because they pay them too poorly?

I am already paying an arm and a leg for my hotel room. On top of that I am to subsidize the shareholders in major corporations that choose to pay their staff wages that verge on abusive? I disagree.

Meredith KeeveParis