# Michael Bauer: A new tipping paradigm. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 18, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035 "2015-02-18T20:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/21 "2015-02-20T07:03:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > If it says “All prices include service,” then that means there’s no tip. Why would you be mad about that? > > All prices _everywhere_ include service, with the main exception being tipped positions. See the post further upthread from **Machine Elf**. In a restaurant without tipping (where all wages were included in the food prices), some customers got angry because they felt that the absence of tipping reduced their say in the waiters’ income. I’m guessing the OP might be another of those people who derives some sort of pleasure (or self-aggrandizement, or whatever it is) from being able to make imperious decisions about how much money his server will receive. Remove tipping, and you remove his chance to lord it over a minimum-wage worker, and that’s just wrong. I’ve lived for extended periods in countries with and without tipping. I’ve worked as a bartender and waiter for extended periods in countries with and without tipping. I worked just as hard when i worked for wages alone as when i worked for tips. And, at least in my experience, service is not really any better or any worse, overall, in one environment or the other. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/22 "2015-02-20T07:18:39Z")
Bauer is a pretentious jerk. Include it in the bill and most restaurant owners will pocket it. Regular customers know this and tip accordingly. What really needs to change is that the nation needs improvement in minimum wage laws. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/23 "2015-02-20T08:02:23Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Bauer is a pretentious jerk. Include it in the bill and most restaurant owners will pocket it. Regular customers know this and tip accordingly. > > What really needs to change is that the nation needs improvement in minimum wage laws. I tend to agree with the second paragraph. I don’t think that the first paragraph necessarily follows, though. If minimum wage laws do need improving, that’s still no reason to carve out a special category of worker that, for arbitrary reasons, has his or her wages directly subsidized by the paying customer rather than paid by the employer. You say that most restaurant owners would, if they simply raised prices and abolished tipping, simply pocket the extra money. Assuming this is true, why does this worry you more than, say, Whole Foods pocketing the money you pay for your overpriced organic produce, or Safeway taking the profit from your milk and cereal purchases? If your local garage or car dealer raises the hourly rate for your annual tune-up, do you grill him about how much of that money is paid to the actual mechanics? Do you assume that increases in your cable bill go into the pockets of Comcast service techs or phone representatives, or into the profit margins? For that matter, why provide direct compensation to the person who carries your food from the kitchen to the table, but not to the person who actually cooks the food for you, or the one who washes up the pots and pans and your dirty dishes in the kitchen? I think that all employees should be paid a decent wage. I’m just not sure that the way to encourage fairer compensation is to create arbitrary categories of people whom we reward with extra money for simply doing the job for which we supposedly pay their employer. Also, tipping encourages tax evasion. Whether you like taxes or not, we should all pay what we owe. Yes, the IRS and the FTB come after some of the wages earned by tipped employees, but i know from personal experience, and from people in the industry, that it’s very easy for a waiter to pay less income tax than he or she is supposed to. Why should the waiter who earns a pre-tax income of, say, 30 or 40 or 50 grand a year pay substantially less tax than the delivery driver or the clerical worker or the school teacher on the same pre-tax income? ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/24 "2015-02-20T13:24:34Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > You don’t need a lawyer (or to “bring it up”) to file a complaint with the [wage and hour division](http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/faq.htm). Complaints are confidential, and [retaliation](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/retaliation.cfm) is also a violation of federal law. Employers can and have been subject to [criminal prosecution](http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/human-resources/employers-paying-penalty-wage-and-hour-violations) for willful violations. And in reality, how often do you think that happens compared to how often employees get stiffed? Let’s just say my faith in those laws is minimal. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/25 "2015-02-20T14:23:11Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Include it in the bill and most restaurant owners will pocket it. Regular customers know this and tip accordingly. I’ve always been inclined to suspect evil from every employer who I’ve ever had, but I think this problem will self correct. I think it’s entirely possible that in a small town or depressed area a restaurant could increase prices, institute no tipping, then _not_ provide a fair wage increase. However, it seems like the no tipping experiments are happening in areas that have a very strong restaurant culture. If the waitstaff at a no tipping restaurant in San Francisco are not making competitive wages, then that restaurant will very soon have the _worst_ waiters in San Francisco. I’ve waited tables for years, waitstaff are not disinclined to walk away from one restaurant for a job at a better one. All the best waitstaff from the evil restaurant that you describe would leave and get a job at a restaurant that still uses the tipping model or a no tipping restaurant that pays a competitive wage. Even if the evil were industry-wide, all the really good waitstaff would change professions and all the new waitstaff would suck. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/26 "2015-02-20T15:07:36Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > You don’t need a lawyer (or to “bring it up”) to file a complaint with the [wage and hour division](http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/faq.htm). Complaints are confidential, and [retaliation](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/retaliation.cfm) is also a violation of federal law. Employers can and have been subject to [criminal prosecution](http://www.accountingweb.com/topic/human-resources/employers-paying-penalty-wage-and-hour-violations) for willful violations. If you think the enforcement mechanisms actually work for the vast majority of waitstaff, I have a bridge to sell you. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/27 "2015-02-20T16:24:05Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you think the enforcement mechanisms actually work for the vast majority of waitstaff, I have a bridge to sell you. They won’t work if nobody reports them. If they do get reported, things like these happen: [Labor Department: Pancho Villa underpaid employees](http://www.dailyprogress.com/starexponent/news/labor-department-pancho-villa-underpaid-employees/article_62a3e9b8-a80a-11e4-ad28-171b88488907.html) [Jacksonville restaurant fined for underpaying employees](http://www.wcti12.com/news/jacksonville-restaurant-fined-for-underpaying-employees/30992418) [Frenchy’s tops list of bay area restaurants that violated labor laws](http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/workinglife/frenchys-restaurant-chain-atop-list-of-bay-area-restaurants-that-violated/2182675) [Two California Restaurants Fined Almost Two Million for Violations](http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/overtime_california/overtime-pay-laws-unpaid-72-19296.html#.VOddIVpkPB4) [Buffet Restaurants in Arcata and Fortuna Fined More than $1M For Wage Theft Violations](http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2014/dec/1/buffet-restaurants-arcata-and-fortuna-fined-more-1/) [Famous Wok Franchisee Ordered to Pay Back Wages](http://www.dol.gov/_sec/newsletter/#.VOdcLFpkPB4) ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/28 "2015-02-20T16:27:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you think the enforcement mechanisms actually work for the vast majority of waitstaff, I have a bridge to sell you. Sure, but from my understanding of the situation, if the enforcement mechanisms fail in these cases it’s not so much that complaints get ignored or badly investigated; it’s more that many waiters, especially in low-end jobs in states with few protections, don’t know what their actual rights are and therefore don’t file complaints. That, or they are threatened with firing by their bosses if they bring up the issue of non-compliance. Barbara Ehrenreich talked about this in _Nickel and Dimed_. It’s been a while since i read it, and i can’t seem to find my copy in the junk of my office right now, but she talked about how the waitstaff she worked with (in Florida, IIRC, but it doesn’t really matter where) had no idea that their employer was supposed to make up any shortfall in their wages if tips did not bring them up to the federal minimum. They were also, in many cases, poor and poorly educated folks who wouldn’t have known where to start in filing a complaint. Edit: Ninjaed by **Doug K.** ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/29 "2015-02-20T16:39:55Z")
Yes, I’m not saying the mechanisms are necessarily flawed. I’m saying the number of employees willing to risk their jobs to report these violations are tiny (even among the pool who know the law is _being_ violated.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/30 "2015-02-20T17:39:16Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I tend to agree with the second paragraph. > > I don’t think that the first paragraph necessarily follows, though. That’s right, the second paragraph follows. Not the first. The first precedes. And since they are paragraphs, they are separate thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/31 "2015-02-20T18:05:43Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > I’m already seeing [A Surcharge To Tabs To Pay For Employees’ Healthcare](http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/02/17/local-restaurant-adds-surcharge-to-tabs-to-pay-for-employees-healthcare/) on my restaurant bill. I’m curious about this. Heard something about it once, haven’t seen it. How widespread is it? Not to hijack the thread or anything… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/32 "2015-02-20T18:27:02Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Sure, but from my understanding of the situation, if the enforcement mechanisms fail in these cases it’s not so much that complaints get ignored or badly investigated; it’s more that many waiters, especially in low-end jobs in states with few protections, don’t know what their actual rights are and therefore don’t file complaints. I’m pretty sure there are standardized labor law posters employers have to post somewhere public; everywhere I’ve worked, except for a few strictly white collar places have had that stuff prominently posted in the breakrooms and/or near the time clocks. There’s usually numbers and websites for the State agencies that investigate that kind of thing listed on the poster. I don’t have much sympathy for someone who doesn’t read the sign. ---
**Author:** ![buddy431](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@buddy431](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddy431)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/33 "2015-02-20T18:45:24Z")
That sounds great to me. The price I see is the price I pay? I’d like that. I’ve had good waiters and I’ve had less good waiters, but on the other hand I’ve had good experiences in the checkout lane at the grocery store and poorer experiences. In my experience, whether a job is tipped or not does not correlate well with how the service is. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/34 "2015-02-20T18:52:32Z")
> [@Furious\_Marmot](#): > > As a former longtime tipped employee, I welcome the demise of tipping, although I suspect it will be a long time coming. Instead of promoting good service, tipping leads to variable income, which is one of the big drivers of turnover among tipped employees, which results in a overall lower level of competency. I’d prefer higher prices across the board, although a per diner service fee isn’t bad either. > > As it is today, it is in a waiter’s best interest to push more expensive options and additional food. I feel like a dick when the waiter realizes the the check total isn’t going to be huge, and assumes that the tip will be proportionally smaller. It’s not reasonable for people’s income to vary wildly depending on whether the customer ordered booze or split a giant main dish. This is an argument against percentage tipping, not an argument against tipping per se. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/35 "2015-02-20T19:20:28Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > That’s right, the second paragraph follows. Not the first. The first precedes. And since they are paragraphs, they are separate thoughts. But the second paragraph doesn’t follow from the first either. As for them being “separate thoughts,” they are still ostensibly addressing the same issue: how we determine compensation for different types of work. If it makes you feel better, i can phrase it thus: I agree with your second thought. Your first thought demonstrates inconsistency and arbitrariness rather than thoughtfulness and logic. Happy now? ---
**Author:** ![Furious\_Marmot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/36 "2015-02-21T01:43:59Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > This is an argument against percentage tipping, not an argument against tipping per se. You are right, the second paragraph is directed at percentage tipping. The first paragraph is not. I will clarify my position: it is irrational to have a few classes of workers (mostly waiters) whose wages are largely dependent on the whims of the customer. In the rest of the labor force, compensation is worked out between the employer and employee. I do not see any reason to involve random customers in it, aside from “we’ve always done it that way”. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/37 "2015-02-21T02:37:48Z")
Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035/38 "2015-02-22T01:31:26Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > I’m curious about this. Heard something about it once, haven’t seen it. How widespread is it? > > Not to hijack the thread or anything… 🙂 Hey Ulf, I saw it itemized out on a tab I received from a high end restaurant back in 2010. I remember that because the restaurant would ship in fresh prawns daily from The Gulf. (They were so Yummy. Gimme gimme gimme…). The next day was the BP oil spill. I never went back and they appear to be outta business. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-bauer-a-new-tipping-paradigm/713035.md?page=1)