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A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

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Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#191

Post by dataflow »

vondur wrote: post #164
dhosek wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with the no tax on tips thing pandered by both major condidates is that most waiters don’t make enough to be paying income tax in the first place. On the other hand, more regressive taxes on income (OASDI/Medicare/IL state income tax) would apply, but none of these would be covered.

That's not generally true. My friend worked at a waiter in the 90's and was making $200-$300 a night on tips on the weekend. Definitely not reported income either.

> don’t make enough

> That's not generally true. [...] in the 90's and was making

These are not contradictory?

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#192

Post by Cthulhu_ »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #143
atoav wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, divide and conquer is the prerequisite to allow the non-working-class to exploit actual labor. I say human dignity is non-negotiable. So there should be a legal minimum wage which is automatically adjusted to the living prices of wherever the person you hire is expected to work. If you are unable (or worse: unwilling ) to pay people enough to survive of your work, you are irresponsible and a leech on society th…

So the solution is to throw many of the people who currently make $10/hour out of a job and onto welfare? That's what you're proposing. If we raised the minimum wage to $20/hour, some businesses would raise their wages, and some will fire those workers. And once on welfare it is extremely hard to get off welfare because of claw-backs and because once you have a gap in your resume it's really hard to get a full time $…

> So the solution is to throw many of the people who currently make $10/hour out of a job and onto welfare? That's what you're proposing.

It's not an either / or. If the US were to invest more in education and developing the economy everywhere, there would be more jobs beyond low paid "unskilled" labour. That is, at the moment there's too much demand in low paid jobs, too little in e.g. college or uni level positions, and too much supply of people desperate enough for a job to take something below the standards of living.

Compare with my country, which during the pandemic saw a large amount of people in the service industry change jobs, because during the pandemic a lot of restaurants and the like were closed. When those opened up again, they found themselves with a shortage of staff, leading to the ones that still worked in the industry to be in a strong negotiating position and have their wages increased significantly.

Take away the supply - by increasing supply of higher-paid and diverse jobs everywhere - and low wage jobs become higher paid jobs automatically. In theory.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#193

Post by usrnm »

nmd wrote: post #131
wichert wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me change that a bit: "it's pretty ubiquitous in the US". It's not common everywhere. My personal observation (in NL) is that with the transition from cash to contactless payment it seems to be becoming less common over time. Payment terminals here are not setup to ask for a tip (with very rare exceptions) - you just pay the amount on the receipt directly.

As someone also living in NL (Amsterdam though, may be different in other parts of NL), I have to partially disagree with you. It's not at the US level yet, but, my experience is that many if not most cafes/restaurants I go to now display a "Choose your tip %" screen on the payment terminal before paying, and anecdotally it feels like this is becoming more common over time with the newer payment terminals.

Same. But I always just chose 0%

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#194

Post by Dylan16807 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #89
Y-bar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the full time wage can't result in a decent living (housing, food, medical expenses, clothes, feed and clothe a kid or two, and put away a little on the side) then it clearly is too little. Edit: Check out https://livingwage.mit.edu/ for examples based on real-world data.

Why would anyone take the job then, if it didn't provide those things? Also, I have an employee Al who lives with his parents, so he doesn't need to pay anything for housing. Bob is single but has to pay for his own apartment. Carol is a single mom of 4 who needs to pay for her housing and everything for her kids. So should I pay Carol the most, Bob the 2nd most, and then Al the least, even though they're all doing t…

> So should I pay Carol the most, Bob the 2nd most, and then Al the least, even though they're all doing the same job?

They all get the same wage. The minimum is set to be enough for a chosen living situation, and everyone gets at least that much.

(Though some subsidies to help with kids would be reasonable.)

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#195

Post by brnt »

getpost wrote: post #160

I had a summer job as a dishwasher, which paid minimum wage. I was required to join the union, so after union dues, I was paid less than the minimum wage! Being a union member provided no benefits whatsoever for temporary employees such as myself. This reminds me, the artist Gregory Blackstock retired with a union pension at 55 after 25 years' service as a dishwasher[0]. His art provided another source of income, but…

> Being a union member provided no benefits whatsoever for temporary employees

In my union we very much care. What we do now is advocate for a reduction I the number of outsourced positions, and hire directly, so wage and conditions are improved.

It's true unions optimise for certain things too (they also have limited sway and time), as I experienced as an expat. Especially when you know it's temporary, it's unlikely you'll ever see a personal benefit.

OTOH, a union just managed to negotiate 10+% higher wages in my first year in current job, unbeknownst to me, so that's nice.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#196

Post by Cthulhu_ »

throwaway199129 wrote: post #75
atoav wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, divide and conquer is the prerequisite to allow the non-working-class to exploit actual labor. I say human dignity is non-negotiable. So there should be a legal minimum wage which is automatically adjusted to the living prices of wherever the person you hire is expected to work. If you are unable (or worse: unwilling ) to pay people enough to survive of your work, you are irresponsible and a leech on society th…

This makes the assumption that all workers require a living wage. When I worked as a teenager and throughout college, I didn't need to make a living wage since I either lived with my parents or with roommates (admittedly funded by a combination of work and student loans). During that phase of my life, I didn't require a living wage. I just needed some extra money, and so I was willing to accept lower paying jobs that…

And that's fine; the problem is that a lot of people don't have a choice, because there's not enough jobs at their level of education, their willingness to work, etc.

I'm thinking of a reddit post copied off facebook describing college or uni graduates in biology who could only get a job at Starbucks because there wasn't enough demand for their specialism.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#197

Post by Rychard »

DowagerDave wrote: post #138
wichert wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me change that a bit: "it's pretty ubiquitous in the US". It's not common everywhere. My personal observation (in NL) is that with the transition from cash to contactless payment it seems to be becoming less common over time. Payment terminals here are not setup to ask for a tip (with very rare exceptions) - you just pay the amount on the receipt directly.

In North America the growth of Square has pushed things the other way; tips are front and center for the most limited of "tippable service" - starting at 18% and up from there. Tipping on fast food or something like a latte were the extra labour is already priced in is ridiculous.

I went to pick up my dog from the groomer and they asked me for a tip as soon as I said I was there to pick him up.

I replied "Can I see my dog first?"

It just shows that there's an expectation, and at that point it should simply be built into the advertised price.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#198

Post by supperrtadderr »

DrillShopper wrote: post #149
DowagerDave wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In North America the growth of Square has pushed things the other way; tips are front and center for the most limited of "tippable service" - starting at 18% and up from there. Tipping on fast food or something like a latte were the extra labour is already priced in is ridiculous.

The drive through coffee shack that I get coffee from asks for a tip on its payment terminals. I typically do tip because I'm never buying just drip coffee and I'd like to reward the person who took the time to make my drink. In exchange there's typically some latte art which takes some skill to build up.

At a coffee shop I'm sort of a regular at, I hate how they spin around the Square tablet whatever thing and it starts at $1, $2, or $3 for a 2.50 Americano. I usually tip a dollar but honestly, an americano is just two shots and hot water. Basically drip coffee. Sometimes I wonder why I go there at all when I could just make crappy instant coffee at work that more or less tastes same.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#199

Post by ensignavenger »

CalRobert wrote: post #71

My summer as a dishwasher made it clear tipping, already deeply stupid, is wildly unfair even to service workers. A lot of people helped you get your meal, but your dishwasher is definitely not tipped.

And both major party presidential candidates have expressed a desire to enshrine tipping into the tax code as the holy grail tax avoidance.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#200

Post by Cthulhu_ »

dopylitty wrote: post #40
didgetmaster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the job is unskilled (i.e. you can train the next person to do it in less than one hour) and you have several people standing in line to take it if the person doing it, quits; then the current wage is clearly enough. It is just like the price of the meal. If it costs more than people are willing to pay, then it is too expensive; regardless of what you personally think it should cost.

It doesn’t matter how easy a job is to learn. What matters is how many people are willing to do it and how important it is to society. Trash collection may be mostly driving trucks and throwing bags in the back but very few people are willing to do it and society grinds to a halt without it so those folks should be making way more than some Facebook coder who adjusts ad pixels all day. The problem is the US economic…

> so those folks should be making way more

I heard rumours that trash collectors in the US earn pretty good money, in part due to being unionized. I've experienced what happens if binmen go on strike firsthand and / or seen it on the news, it's not pretty.

Whereas industries where there's plenty of supply, like the service industry, cannot get a union off the ground because for every unionized employee, there's plenty of un-unionized people waiting to get a job that doesn't pay them enough, but it's a job and that's good enough.

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