Posted on 12/06/2005 12:33:26 PM PST by George14
It has recently been publicized that a 20 percent tip is now appropriate because servers are usually only guaranteed $2.13 an hour and the tips have to be split. Let me explain something. It is the customer's sole right to determine whether a tip is given, the amount and who will be the recipient of his tip. Such rights are not only guaranteed by our constitution they are clearly explained in the Code of Federal Regulations. Customers may tip any amount they choose. Instead of a higher tip being appropriate, what is now actually appropriate is for the public to start questioning why they are being expected to tip more.
While it has been widely publicized that tip splitting and lowered wages are both creating a need for higher tip percentages, what is not being publicized is an explanation of what these business practices actually are and why they create a need for the public to tip more. You see in both cases, such practices equate to employers being allowed to take part the tips away from the employee to whom the customer has presented a tip. You see, tip splitting is the business practice whereby employers take part of the tipped employee's tips and give them to workers whom the customer had every right and ability to tip but didn't. The $2.13 an hour business practice which has been publicized is actually called a tip credit. The tip credit also allows businesses to take or credit part of their employee's tips for themselves. In both cases the public's tips are being taken by businesses owners. The problem is not that customers should be tipping more the problem is that business owners should not be utilizing their employee's tips for the business's interests.
The truth is, business owners are using the customer's tips which undeniably and indisputably are not intended for the business owner for the business's own interests. Such business practices are being allowed by our government even though such business practices are an illegal dominion over the customer's property. To put it simply, businesses are being allowed to steal the money customers present as tips. Now, the public is being expected to tip more because the workers are not receiving the financial benefits of the tips they have been presented.
What is needed is not a higher tip percentage but some educating of the public of what is actually happening to their tip. Businesses have lobbied our federal government and I believe have probably even paid off many of our judges so they can steal the financial benefits of the tips our public is tipping workers in the service industry. The stories you read on how the public is being expected to tip more are actually stories about how our country is allowing businesses owners an ability to blatantly steal from their workers. If the real issue was resolved there would be no issue.
Employers should be prohibited from using their employee's tips to establish a lower minimum wage for their tipped workers. Customers are not tipping so the business can lower it's payroll expenses and thus benefit itself to the customer's tip. Customers are not tipping so the business owner can decide who should share in their tip. Both these business practices are fraud on the public for they are clearly the misappropriations of the public's property. Because our public has sat back and done nothing as business owners misappropriate the public's tips to their own interests, there now exists an undue pressure on the public to tip more to make up for such criminal acts.
The reason I believe our public has sat back and done nothing as business owners reap the financial benefits of the tips presented to their workers is because the media has also been paid off to avoid informing the public of what is actually happening to their tip when the courts ignore the constitutional rights of the customer and when our federal government so blatantly misappropriates the public's tips. The courts have ruled that employers may share the customer's tip among employees whom the customer had every right to tip but didn't. The federal government has allowed businesses to benefit themselves to the customer's tip through the tip credit without the consent of the customer. Such acts by our federal government and courts are not only unconstitutional but criminal. The media is covering up such crimes by intentionally avoiding the issue and keeping the truth from the public.
The tipped employees of this nation need some help from the public on these issues. The truth of what is happening to the customer's tip is being withheld from the public so that employers can continue to steal our tips while the public is left to foot the bill.
We do not have a customary system that has evolved, we have criminal business practices that have prevailed over the will of the people because our politicians and judges think they can take bribes and get away with it. Our laws contradict every one of these business practices you falsely claim have naturally evolved. Our laws state that tips are the sole property of the tipped employee and yet business owners are going so far as to solicit tips with tip jars because they know they can unjustly finacially benefit themselves to the money placed into these jars.
It's only working out OK for the business owners of this country. The public is being fleeced more and more for tips so business owners can get richer. It's fraud and you say it's ok. Our laws state clearly that the law forbids any arrangement betweent the employer and the tipped employee whereby any part of the tip becomes the property of the employer and yet employers are getting rich off their employee's tips. I don't know what's natural about businesses getting rich because the public gives their employee's additional income. The workers are making less every year and the public is tipping more every year. Seems to me a bit unatural.
Employees paid to scale with optional tip income would be quite pleasant for a change and pretty natural to me. Isn't that the nature of a tip. To reward outstanding service above and beyond what the employer is paying his employee?
It's not woking out ok for workers or the public. The public is being expected to tip more to make up for the tips the employer is stealing from his employees and the workers are making less because the employer is stealing many of the finacial benefits of the tips the public presents. I guess you own a restaurant since you think it's working out ok, for everyone else is suffering.
Fancy-shmancy restaurants of the type that I avoid.
20 percent or better here-- with the very rare exception, demonstrated the other month when I had to wait half an hour for some teenager to decide to come over to the table so I could freakin' order coffee, let alone anything else. That kid is lucky I left her anything at all.
The place was not that busy, btw.
I see you walking out of that screwy set-up the second the guy put the stack of cash there.
I'd never call you either of those things. Worse, maybe, but never a broad...lol.
The tip is automatically included for large tables, so it was on the ticket our head guy received and paid. The waitress had the nerve to act upset that he didn't tip her, and demanded cash on the spot. Dumbest thing I ever saw.
I see a problem with it. When I pay my bill, I already pay the restaurant an overpriced amount for the food, so the owner has been well-compensated. When I give a tip, I do it to thank the service person who helped me, and most certainly could use the money....not to make the owner of the restaurant more wealthy. I never put money in a jar on a countertop (like at Starbucks or somewhere similar) because I don't know to whom that money will go, and I suspect the owner will keep it all.
Yeah that has always bugged me. The only times I will put $ into such a container is, loose pennies at a place like Starbucks, or if the establishment is obviously a small mom-n-pop type deal.
Europeans don't tip.
Whoa buddy. Now, that is just puerile.
Hope he didn't give it to her.
What's the point of tipping a casino dealer anyway? Unlike in a restaurant, there's nothing a casino dealer can do for me above and beyond what he's paid to do ordinarily that isn't illegal.
Just because they call it "bribing" rather than "tipping" doesn't mean it doesn't happen there.
No, he sure did not. We did have another round of drinks at the bar with Luis Gonzales and laugh at her audacity, though....
It goes unnoticed by the customer, you see, because the customer is paying the waiter the wages that keeps the waiter happy and the customer is desensitized because the custom has been conditioned into the culture through implication of necessity and presumption of decorum. 
The customer doesn't care about the formulas. The customer cares only about the overall price paid and value received. If a customer is really getting screwed, he/she will go to a place that offers better value. Simple as that.
You apparently are proceeding from the asusmption that there is some overall "just" or "fair" price. No such thing exists. The correct price is what customers are willing to pay in a competitive market, which the restaurant business certainly is.
You think the customer would be better off if there was no tipping, and the owners were forced to charge higher baseline prices to accommodate the standard minimum wage and to attract staff?
Re: your comment in post #267 --
Your are about the 200th person to tell me that Europeans don't tip.
Thanks.
Yeah, but I didn't find that out until I read the rest of the thread :). If we had to read the whole thread before posting, this joint wouldn't be any fun at all.
Well, we all live and learn. And I have learned that Europeans don't tip. Who said Freeping was a waste of time?
Yeah...but...but where do you tuck the ten spot? ;-)
Tip is an acronym standing for "to insure promptness."
Consider it a tip.
Linguistic legend. There's no evidence that that is true . . . and bear in mind, the more plausible an origin story sounds,the greater the odds that it's made up.
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