tx, what is so unnerving is how many (so called) conservatives don’t understand how the wait staff/bartender pay situation is one of the best functioning and most merit based parts of our entire economy. It is working just great.
Good people can find jobs at good places. Good places can find good people. And they do find each other in the food/bev world. If you want to work at a good place, you become a good waiter/waitress/bartender etc.
Meanwhile, customers gladly patronize these places and gladly tip the servers. Many come back, not only for the food, but also for the service. Everyone is happy. Everyone is winning. And not a single damned judge was needed to make any of these decisions. And yet, Cry wants to impose her view of the world in a system that is working great.
I see that you really love the current arrangement.
But why doesn’t free enterprise allow people who don’t like the arrangement to push restaurants in a different direction? I mean, the restaurants are free to do whatever they want, right? And they can choose to take input from customers or not, right?
Is it unfathomable to you that some restaurants might choose a slightly different method of compensation, and appeal to the clientelle that likes that?
You seem to think that anybody saying that they prefer something else is asking the government to change it.
Do you run a restaurant? You seem very passionate about it, passionate enough to be quickly insulting to anybody who doesn’t like it as much as you do.
I also wonder if you have missed the near-daily reports here of how freeloaders are now taking advantage of the system to stiff workers and get their meals cheaper. Don’t you see how that can upset the balance you find so favorable?
Would you want to be a plumber if the way you got paid was that you showed up, did your best, and the customer paid you whatever they felt like?
But maybe I don’t understand what you are actually defending here. Do you think the restaurant should have the right to add a required tip to a bill? IT IS JUST A QUESTION. Isn’t that just like raising the price and eliminating the first 15% of the tip?
You really think this is working great. Do you think it is great that two waiters both work their butts off, do great service, and one makes $15 an hour, the other makes $2.50 because the second one served a table of minorities?
Maybe where you live there hasn’t been a rising problem of waiters getting stiffed. Do you know waiters and waitresses? AGAIN, IT IS A REAL QUESTION. Are they saying the love the current system? Are they having trouble with non-paying customers?
My position is that I prefer restaurants where while you still tip, the waitstaff have a higher hourly wage. I find them to be more pleasant. I don’t know why you think this is somehow “anti-free-enterprise”, I think it is exactly what the free market gives us — businesses that cater to the differing desires of different customers.
tx, what is so unnerving is how many (so called) conservatives don’t understand how the wait staff/bartender pay situation is one of the best functioning and most merit based parts of our entire economy. It is working just great.
I know some wait-staff who’ve refused to be promoted because they would lose money even if paid as management.