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Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

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Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#121
post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

It's been tried in restaurants many times and usually with negative results. People balk at higher prices on the menu.

It's been tried in multiple countries with success.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who steal the difference between a living wage and a tip-subsidized wage? Subsidized by us, who pay twice?

> The people who steal the difference between a living wage and a tip-subsidized wage? The people who could "steal the difference" are usually the owners, right? Not sure why GP put the owners and kitchen staff in the same bucket. From my experience as a client in bars (without actual kitchens) in Paris, France, where tipping "isn't expected but kinda is" [0], most of the time tips are split between wait staff. So I…

> Not sure why GP put the owners and kitchen staff in the same bucket.

Because the parent was talking about rewarding good job. The kitchen staff and the owners are both a factor in your good time and invisible during that time. If that's a honest opinion about the purpose of tips, then I don't see why owners/managers shouldn't share the pool. They run the place, created the environment, hired the people interacting with you. Then there are managers who deal with day-to-day issues in the place, right?

But that's not true of course - it's about owners not paying people properly.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#124
post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

I don’t think you’ve worked a job where you got tipped, have you? It’s actually one of the few ways people can make a lot of money for doing a good job. What you describe punishes hard work, the people getting tips would hate it.

I do not want the wait staff who serve me to do a great, or even a good, job.

I want them to do a adequate job.

Good enough is good enough for me.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#125
post #109
post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

This is a reasonable comment, and seems a fairly popular idea. But is this the most important comment thread, to be voted to the top, on this particular post? The topic of the post is alleged blatant theft of tips. The question of whether there should be tips in the first place could be a diversion from the more immediate topic.

No tips = no theft and people actually get paid a wage that allows them to live well.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#126
post #63
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it switched to fixed hourly pay, they'd be taking a pay cut since there is no way their hourly pay would be $30/hr. Why not? I live in a country with no tipping culture and we have no problem paying service industry workers this much.

Let me guess Switzerland? $30/hr there is less than $20/hr in the US adjusted for COL.

No, Australia.

As for cost of living, my first job was doing 20 hour weeks at a McDonald's as a teenager. It paid enough for me to live very comfortably just 5 minutes outside of a major city (>1mil population). Obviously that's not too relevant to the tipping discussion since fast food workers aren't typically going to get tipped anywhere, but it serves as a demonstration of the living conditions a developed country should be able to provide, and tipping is entirely non-existent here so it's clearly not necessary to ensure that those working in service industries are fairly compensated.

The amount of Americans I see casually mentioning that they need to work multiple jobs scares the crap out of me.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#127
post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

It's been tried in restaurants many times and usually with negative results. People balk at higher prices on the menu.

I didn’t know tipping was a thing before going to the US so no, that’s not true in the rest of the world.

And I’d argue that people who would complain about that here are people who don’t tip and save a bunch of bucks thanks to us suckers.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been tried in restaurants many times and usually with negative results. People balk at higher prices on the menu.

Not true. Australia does not have tipping in it's culture. We pay our wait staff fair and reasonable rates (legally mandated btw). I don't really think our food costs are too much higher than the USA. And people eat out ALOT here. Food tastes good, service is good. People want to come back. Please expand your horizons.

I think the issue in the US is that it has only been tried at a store level rather than at a state or country level.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been tried in restaurants many times and usually with negative results. People balk at higher prices on the menu.

Not true. Australia does not have tipping in it's culture. We pay our wait staff fair and reasonable rates (legally mandated btw). I don't really think our food costs are too much higher than the USA. And people eat out ALOT here. Food tastes good, service is good. People want to come back. Please expand your horizons.

Eh, service in Australia is generally not particularly great. This is often a function of staffing though, since wages are expensive (national minimum wage $19.84/hr) and many Australian restaurants consequently either operate with a skeleton staff, pay under the table (migrants/students are brutally exploited), or both.

Japan, on the other hand, has incredible service and absolutely no tips.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#130
post #9

Just do away with tips. It's a terrible and stupid system. If you want to do it as a customer, go ahead, but it should never be considered as part of the employee's compensation. If people aren't willing to do the job for the hourly wage alone with no tips, raise the wage until they are.

Agreed. There're several other good articles about this. Here's one: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/08/15/why-americas-t...

Or in video form, Adam ruins everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k
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