[US centric viewpoint]

Some people who are pro-tipping are that way because they think the people are worth it. Maybe they have worked in a position that relied on tips. Maybe someone close to them did or does. Maybe they know that a dollar or two actually makes a difference for many people.

Whenever worker exploitation is involved (such as in this case), or when the worker materially relies on tips to stay afloat, I always try to tip.

Wherever it's accepted by society, I also generally tip.

Tipping is an incentive for employers to squeeze the workers even more. Employers need to pay the workers a decent wage rather than them relying on tips.

Then you are just enabling that process to continue. You are subsidizing their wages and making it seem ok for their employer to pay them peanuts.

I don't tip anyone and tipping is not a common practice where I live. In fact, most people would feel insulted if you gave them a tip here.

> You are subsidizing their wages and making it seem ok for their employer to pay them peanuts.

You're going to end up paying for it either way. But yes, I agree - I'd rather get rid of the culture of tipping and just pay a reasonable price for a service.

The thing that really sucks though, is per federal law an employer paying the 'tipping minimum wage' is required to make up the difference if an employee makes below the normal minimum wage - they almost never do from what I can tell. By choosing to not tip not only am I just being an asshole, but the employer won't change anything either because the chance of them being caught being a douchebag is slim.

What would you do instead? Just not tip them?

I treat tips the same way that sales managers treat commissions. (I wouldn't be surprised if that's the model it came from, actually.)

If you pretend to care about me and my company while we eat at your restaurant (or whatever) and do all that you can to make the experience a good one for us, then we will tip you well and we will more than likely come back. 20% is usually my minimum, but I've tipped 50-100% sometimes.

Treat us like shit, and you'll get tipped equivalently. (I've tipped 5% before for really crappy service. I don't like doing that, though.)

So even when someone treats you like shit (your words) you still give them more than you owe? Why?

I'm not the person you were responding to, but my reasoning is that I still get paid even on days when I phone it in and do poorly at my job. Why should I in turn get to deny pay to others, as long as they did the bare minimum?

I think the bar for someone to not get paid for working should be really fucking high.

If you tip nothing, they might think you forgot.

Because getting paid $2.15/hr is garbage

Service industries. It's pretty simple. Any job where the worker is unlikely to be appreciated by their boss for going above and beyond but it makes a big difference to me.

The cook in the kitchen gets no tip. Unlikely to be appreciated, gets no share of the tip, and could make my dish a delight, or spit in it.

The guy/girl says "i'm gonna be your waiter tonight", and that's the last time you see them, others bring the dishes and clean the table. And by law, they cannot share the tip.

When I pay for service, I'd like the employer and the market to figure out for me what's a fair wage. Don't put it on me, 1) I'll most likely be wrong and unfair, and 2) I just cannot tip the cook.

The restaurants I worked in were pretty openly corrupt about that sort of thing. If you didn't tip out the hostess and busboys, you wouldn't get customers or clean tables. If your tables turned more slowly, you would eventually get canned.

The cooks all made more money. Front of house people made like $2.25/hr (mid 90s), the line cooks made $12.

In America (well, at least in Florida), policy at some restaurants dictates that servers "tip out" some percentage of their tips to the cook and ancillary staff. It's most certainly not illegal here.

> And by law, they cannot share the tip.

That's absolutely not true.

You forced me to check my sources. Thank you. I cannot just trust my memory.

Looks like the front of the house can pool their tips in many states in the USA indeed. But according to Nolo, they cannot pool with people who typically get no tips.

"Only employees who regularly receive tips can be part of the pool. Employees can't be required to share their tips with employees who don't usually receive their own tips, like dishwashers or cooks."

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tip-pooling-credits-s...

Just because it is not legal to force servers to share some with the bar backs and the cooks does not mean it is not expected in most places. Not all social customs should be codified in law. Some flexibility in life is good.

In practice it's any sort of delivery job that you personally interact with the worker. It's pretty uncanny actually. Taxis, waiters, bartenders, some couriers & porters. People who have worked those jobs feel strongly about tips. People who were left out of the tipped class feel like it was bullshit.

A bunch of others expand with a communal tip jar, but it's very rare for anyone to care about putting something in the jar. You don't tip cafe workers, convenience store workers, retail workers and so on even though they get paid the same minimum wage.