I do tip, but I also have a moral objection to the gratuity system. I can't walk into a restaurant and just take food for free. So why is it I can legally steal the labor of waitstaff?
The image to the right and other similarly worded images have made their rounds through social media networks. Invariably the anger is aimed at those who don't tip: the "cheap piece of shit."
Missing is the righteous anger at restauranteurs who refuse to pay a living wage to their help. The restaurant owner would never dream of letting the patron decide what to leave for a meal, but somehow it's perfectly reasonable to make that decision when it comes to the hard work of those who serve us?
In fact the restaurant lobby has successfully kept wages stagnant for the past 20 years:
Since 1966, a sub-section of the minimum wage has existed for people who work for gratuities, known as the "tipped minimum wage," which Congress last bumped to $2.13 per hour in 1991. Some states have increased the tipped minimum wage on their own as well -- and Washington, like six other states, has no tipped minimum wage at all, so servers earn a full $9.04 before gratuities. About half of all states, however, continue to allow restaurants to pay servers $2.13, provided they make up the difference if the server doesn't reach the standard minimum wage after tips.
As Oscar Wilde said, "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." We know the price of a burger. We know how much a pint of beer costs. But we have no idea how to value the labor of the hard working people that make it all possible. We need to push past the gratuity system towards a living wage that values peoples hard work.
Posted with Blogsy
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