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Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

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Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#331

Post by buzzdenver »

accountofme wrote: post #118
buzzdenver wrote: post #108

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.

Yeesh. I should've said that it was tried in the US and didn't catch on. Not having a tipping culture to begin with is great, but the hard part is to switch from tipping to not tipping without legislating it.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#332

Post by leetcrew »

efwfwef wrote: post #327
leetcrew wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vouched this because it more or less matches my experience as a server. also want to second this point. do not "protest tipping" by refusing to tip employees who expect at least 15% to make ends meet. you're not making a point; you're just screwing over some random person. also this ties into something that a lot of people don't seem to take into account when arguing for abolishing tipping. servers tend to like tippi…

> you're just screwing over some random person Their employers is screwing them over, not me. I am not. You want to force me to tip you? Make it mandatory then.

no one said anything about forcing and I don't currently work as a server. I'm strongly suggesting that not tipping doesn't make the point you think it does, and it definitely doesn't help that particular service worker. you're not pressuring the owner to change shit. you're sending home a low income employee with less than they reasonably expected to make off serving you dinner. servers who routinely complain about low/no tips tend to get fired (it's taken as a proxy for poor performance), not given a raise.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#333

Post by michaelmrose »

edgyquant wrote: post #133
michaelmrose wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your wife is broadly viewed as attractive and working in the half of employees at her business which interacts with the public she may benefit more than average from tips which provides a poor justification for making a decision if the broad welfare of all employees in tipped industries is concerned.

I was only commenting on the pooling of tips which isn’t something every place does

In any situation where the following benefits accrue

A: 80 B: 80 C: 80

A would logically prefer a situation where the following benefits accrue even with total outcomes being on average worse because A is logically and understandably primarily interested in their own well being.

A: 100 B: 50 C: 50

Tips are better for the employer because they fan advertise a price n where the customer will be expected to pay n+10-25%

Pooled tips are better on average because the extra tax the employer is able to levy accrues to everyone. Non pooled tips are better for attractive people or those who are much more competent than their peers.

No tips and actually paying employees what they are worth is even better.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#334

Post by devchix »

michaelmrose wrote: post #333
edgyquant wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only commenting on the pooling of tips which isn’t something every place does

In any situation where the following benefits accrue A: 80 B: 80 C: 80 A would logically prefer a situation where the following benefits accrue even with total outcomes being on average worse because A is logically and understandably primarily interested in their own well being. A: 100 B: 50 C: 50 Tips are better for the employer because they fan advertise a price n where the customer will be expected to pay n+10-25%…

>No tips and actually paying employees what they are worth is even better.

There's plenty of resistance from the servers themselves, though. Whenever this subject comes up on kitchen-pros related subreddits, IIRC this just came up not too long ago (/r/kitchenconfidentials, I think?) servers don't want to take straight wages over tips. I always think qualifiers like "better" doesn't mean better for everyone. Some servers make so much in tips, or think they can exceed their straight wages in tips, that they believe the current system favors them. Much like the majority of SWEs on HN are vociferously resistant to the idea of a SWE union.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#335

Post by imgabe »

kryogen1c wrote: post #300
imgabe wrote: 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 sort of a microcosm of socialism vs capitalism. that being the complex discussion that it is, i think your claim that its a "terrible and stupid system" is far from obviously true, if true at all. 1) its entirely possible and common to make a living wage in the tip system. my wife and i just ran the numbers and she grossed ~17$/hour between her two restaurant tip-based jobs - during COVID with capacity restri…

> its entirely possible and common to make a living wage in the tip system.

It's also entirely possible and common to make a living wage without tips. Most people do.

> the tip system provides opportunity. it is a way for someone with no skills, education, prospects, or CV to start making steady money.

So does every other entry-level or unskilled job. There is nothing magical about tips.

> eliminating it increases the risk for hirer as they their hiring cost changes astronomically from ~3$/hr to 10-20$/hr.

This is not a risk that should be eliminated. It's your job as a business owner to pay your employees. It's not your customer's problem. Every other business that is not a restaurant seems to be able to manage this, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to as well.

> performance incentives are good by definition. you want all systems to have incentives aligned with the desired outcome. i dont see how removing the incentive structure improves the outcome for anyone except bad servers.

Performance incentives should be provided by the employer. If I go to a restaurant, I'm not interested in taking on an unpaid job as a restaurant manager. I just want to eat a meal, not conduct employee performance reviews.

> restaurants dont get a cut of tips. it is a direct transaction between customer and server (less taxes, obviously). this is the peak of efficiency. by forcing restaurants into being a middleman, you are creating a rent-seeker and lowering real economic output.

The restaurant is already a major component of the transaction. The transaction would not even exist if not for the restaurant, why shouldn't they be a part of it? I didn't personally hire some guy off the street to fetch food for me. They're the restaurant's employee.

> 2 and 4 make it more dangerous to open a new restaurant. raising the bar for entry into any business scenario is generally undesirable and produces less competition and creativity. less success and more expensive failure.

It's no more of a bar to entry than any other business that doesn't depend on tips.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#336

Post by sitkack »

billynomates111 wrote: post #291
sitkack wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimes need to be handled by the justice system. That is part of the a-solution for people that use Amazon and want to feel better about themselves. But when corporations commit crimes, the people inside responsible need to face justice, not just making whole the harm they have done. These are real crimes and need to be punished. A few people voting with their dollars does nothing.

Of course, but in my opinion you have no right to complain about how a company behaves if you're aware of how they behave and continue to give them your money. In addition, a lot of the terrible stuff Amazon does is not illegal but still reprehensible.

I mostly agree, life is hard. It is a spectrum and we pick our battles. We can both not like something and do what we need to do.

I still shop at amazon for certain things because reasons, but where mostly and firstly, not-amazon. The more places where we can make the right, moral, ethical choice a continuum rather than a step function, the easier it is to change both ourselves and the world.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#337

Post by imgabe »

bagacrap wrote: post #294
imgabe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also incentivize people by firing them when they don't do the job well, as every other industry does. Why are you even hiring people who aren't going to do the job well? What kind of crappy attitude is that? "I know you hired me and you're paying me and I'm here to do this job, but I'm going to do it really poorly unless you pay me extra"

Do you not find that some people in the service industry do a better job than others, and make your day more pleasant as a result? > really poorly Your words, not mine. Obviously if you're consistently terrible at your job you can get fired. But what's the incentive to go above and beyond, vs "good enough"? And how are tips for a server different from an annual performance based bonus for a white collar worker? I don…

Going "above and beyond" is, by definition, unnecessary. The manager / business owner can set the standard of the level of service they expect and then ensure the staff provides it. That is their job, it is not the customer's job.

> and how are tips for a server different from an annual performance based bonus for a white collar worker?

Because the bonus is provided by the employer, not the customer. It's done by someone who is familiar with your work over the course of an entire year and who is much more aware of all the surrounding circumstances, not someone who met you for an hour or two while you were also doing 10 other things they knew nothing about.

It's also subject to all the same labor laws and regulations as a wage. A company can't say "we're not going to give bonuses to black employees" without getting sued out of existence. Any customer can decide they aren't going to tip based on whatever reason, valid or not, that they want. Or no reason at all.

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#338

Post by efwfwef »

leetcrew wrote: post #332
efwfwef wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're just screwing over some random person Their employers is screwing them over, not me. I am not. You want to force me to tip you? Make it mandatory then.

no one said anything about forcing and I don't currently work as a server. I'm strongly suggesting that not tipping doesn't make the point you think it does, and it definitely doesn't help that particular service worker. you're not pressuring the owner to change shit. you're sending home a low income employee with less than they reasonably expected to make off serving you dinner. servers who routinely complain about…

It's a good theory but I don't agree with it, sure it may cause harm in the short term but in the long term not tipping will benefit people

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#339

Post by fredophile »

Noos wrote: post #114
fredophile wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that does sound like a problem do you think that tipping would fix it?

I don't think it fixes i would say, but more likely people wouldn't waitress for very long then, just like they don't stay at stores or other service positions for every long. Part of the reason tips work is that those restaurants wouldn't pay close to what the servers make otherwise. They'd end up giving them $10 an hour with a 25 cent or 35 cent raise every year. It's really low. I've worked in a place where people…

Here's what I think the likely outcome would be. High end restaurants that pride themselves on good service would increase their pay to keep good staff. At the very bottom end waitstaff would no longer have to tolerate the worst of their customers behaviour just to scrape by on tips. In the middle you'll see the increased turn over that you predicted.

Do you tip other service positions like the employee that helps you at best buy or the cashier at the grocery store? Why are they different? If people staying in one job longer is a good thing and tipping helps that why wouldn't you?

Re: Amazon shortchanged drivers $61.7M in tips

#340

Post by Scea91 »

emptysongglass wrote: post #209
ben509 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tips are fundamentally broken. If you didn't know about tips, and someone offered you a job and said, "I'll pay you crap wages, but you can ask the customers for more money. Don't worry, they'll pay or their friends won't like them," you'd think it was a scam because it's such an obviously terrible deal. Tips are an awful way to incentivize good service. I'm neither qualified to judge my server's performance, and I'v…

Can we talk about why service is astronomically better in the US than countries with very high worker protections and base wages like Denmark? I'm genuinely curious what you think the factors are in their difference because when I live in Denmark (as I do now) it feels like the waiter could give less of a s** whether the service is good or not whereas when I live in LA or NYC I feel like I am the golden child of thei…

Hard to find a better service than in Japan. No tips there.
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