Why would an employer provide (at the restaurant’s expense) all these support staff employees for the purpose of providing help to the server, then allow the server to walk away with all the tips?

Maybe because stealing private property is a crime?

Employers are providing help to the server to make themselves money. It’s just a part of business. You need workers to run a restaurant. The reason customers are tipping is because restaurants have a reputation of underpaying their servers. If restaurants hadn’t been so cheap to start with, customers wouldn’t be tipping. Don’t act like it’s the server’s fault customers are tipping thme. Before 1960m many restaurants didn’t even pay their servers an hourly wage, they made them work for tips only. Servers were not eligible for minimum wage until the mid 1960.

Kristy also wrote:
George seems to think that a business should provide a “free” space for a server to come in, do his/her thing and walk away, with no responsibility to those who contributed to their success. Look at the wages they are currently paying their employees. The restaurant industry currently pays the lowest wages of any industry.

It’s not servers who think that they should walk away with all the money, thats what restaurant onwers think. They think they can open a business and walk away with no responsibility to those who contributed to their success.

Look, if customer tipping is causing such a problem for restaurnat owners, why don’t they just put up no tipping signs?

The truth of the matter is, while owners like Kristy want to us to believe that tipping is causing problems for owners, like creating HUGE wage disparity between the service personnel, none of them are willing to put a sign up stating no tipping allowed. You see the truth is, this tipping that Kristy is complaining about is aiding business owners. That’s right, while Kristy wants us to believe that tipping is something servers have invented to steal away part of the income their employer should be raking in, the truth of the matter is, the reluctance of restaurant owners to pay their server’s a respectable hourly wage is what actually prompted customers to start tipping.

And yet Kristy wants to act as if a server is there to set up to run his own little business of making tips. It’s not a business. Customers don’t have to tip. the only reason they are tipping is, they know how stingy and cheap most restaurant owner are.

Thind about this. In the 1960′s, restaurant owners either lobbied or bribed our elected officials into passing a law that allows business owners to pay workers who receive tips $2.13 instead of the normal minimum wage. Rather than paying employees $7.25 an hour, the current minimum wage, restaurant owners are now able to pay tipped employees only $2.13 an hour.

The point I am making is, while Shirley suggests that tips should be taken away from the servers so that part of the tips can be shared with other support staff, allowing employers to distribute the customer’s tip in such a manner would actually provide employers with the opportunity to pay more workers $2.13 an hour.

Do you see what I am getting at? While Kristy is appearing to care about all the other employees who are not receing tips directly from customers, the truth of the matter is, there is an alterior motive for employers to share the servers tips with other workers. When a worker receives $30 a month in tips, the workers is classified as a tipped employee. Under federal, and most state, laws, employers can pay tipped employees less than minimum wage. When an employer forces some of his tipped workers to share part of their tips with other workers, the other workers now qualify to be paid $2.13 an hour instead of $7.25.

While Shirley acts as if she’s concerned about the other workers earning enough, restaurant owners in the past have shown that they don’t want their workers to earn that much. That’s why they persuaded lawmakers into allowing them to pay tipped employee’s $2.13 an hour.

Do you realling think they care about their employees when they continue to support the idea that an empolyee who receives tip should only be paid $2.12 an hour?

Another is – going into it as a food lover rather than a businessman.

George seems to think that a business should provide a “free” space for a server to come in, do his/her thing and walk away, with no responsibility to those who contributed to his success. Herein lies the justification for the employer to implement policies regarding the fair sharing of the tips. As long as the laws are followed, that is the right of the employer. I have to think that when a customer walks into a restaurant, he/she is smart enough to realize that there are laws, then policies that are being implemented when it comes to the customer’s money, both the charges and the tips.

If George were to ever step on the other side, into ownership, his eyes would be opened.