If that is the pay level they chose to work for, then that is between them and the employer.
The system we have works the best. i.e. tipping. It ensures the waiters have an incentive to serve you promptly.
Waiters in my state usually earn about $3.00 per hour and the rest are tips. They can get rid of tipping and charge you $18 for that meal that currently cost $10 and you will probably get more crappy service as a result.
People that do not tip are moochers of the rest of the people that do tip as a certain cost of your meal is via tips.
I’m going to correct these two big, old, fat whoppers of a lie, right now.
____________________________________________________________
“You do realize that their pay is ratcheted down so that if they get the tip level the social mavens insist upon they will then achieve minimum wage?”
“Because their minimum wage per hour is $2.13.”
____________________________________________________________
In states that don’t have minimum wage equal to or greater than the Federal Minimum wages, there are sometimes special exceptions to the WAY a minimum wage is met. I have worked in this industry for many years, in mmultiple states. Saying that the minimum wages for Waiters and Waitresses is a BIG FAT LIE, and waiters and waitresses don’t make minumum wages for long.
The way it works is that the employer must from an amount of $2 (and change), towards the hourly wage. Then the tips get factored in and credited towards the minumum wage. If those surpass the $7.25/hour, then the employer pays no more. However, if that does not reach the FEDERALLY required $7.25/hour the EMPLOYER MUST pay more wages until it gets to the $7.25/hour. Now, in my years of food service, AND restaurant management., I have never, ever, ever, once even HEARD of someone not breaking minumum wage with tips added. If they didn’t they wouldn’t have a job long, because they’d have been fired anywa, and replaced by management for someone who could get the minimum through tips.
The average tipped restaurant employee makes between $30,000 and $50,000/year PART TIME. This argument about tipping is not about meeting minimum wage, it’s about getting $15 /hour, rather than $10 (if you are terrible at the job), or about getting $25/hour, rather than $20.
Don’t believe the liars, and the bleeding hearts that claim that service people don’t get paid enough. They can always find a job with technical expertise and training if they don’t like working with people. But the fact is, that the minimum wage is NO different for people who are waiters/waitresses, than for the rest of us. If they don’t work well enough to get tips, then the employer still pays the difference, by law. So let’s end that lie, here and now.