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?

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.

Imagine if I were to walk into a restaurant and distribute the money in the cash register in the following manner.

1% to the hostess
5% to the bartender
13.4% to the busboys
26.8% to the captain
26.9% to the back waiter
26.9% to the restaurant owner (Chris’s employer)

What’s wrong with this picture?

Are you all to stupid to see how illegal this is?

Restaurants have no more of a right to distribute it’s customer’s tips as a customer, like myself, would have to walk into their restauarant and distribute the money in their cash register.

If I were to walk into a restaurant and begin distributing the money in their cash register, the restaurant would call the police, I would be arrested, and a judge would sentence me to jail. It would be obvious to everyone that I was stealing their property.

But when a restaurant does the exact same thing, takes my private property and begins dividing it up, people act as if it’s perfectly legal. Is this world insane?

How can anyone not see that such business practices are illegal?

Are they putting something in your water to make you stupid?

As a former server myself, I think George is WAY out of line. Once money exchanges hands, it is no longer “your money”.

I am not suggesting that the person I give a tip doesn’t have a right to share my tip with whom-ever they want. What I am stating is that I am not giving my tip to any business owner. Do you understand what I am saying?

While you can do what-ever you want with a tip I give you, it is stealing for someone other than you, namely your employer, to take my tip and share it with whom-ever your employer chooses.

When employers adopt a policy of pooling or sharing tips, they are taking my tip away from the employee to whom I intended to tip without my permission. They are stealing my tip and treating it as if I gave them the tip. When a business adopts a policy concerning how my tip will be shared, they are stealing my tip.

You see, I have a legal right to choose who my tip belongs to. It’s my property. As my property, I am the only one with the authority to decide who it belongs to.

Once I’ve determined who it belongs to, that person, and that person alone, can do what they want with my tip. It becomes their property after, not before, I’ve chosen to give them a tip.

As a consumer who tips on a regular basis, I am hereby declaring that any employer who adopts policies concerning how my tip will be pooled or shared is doing so without my permission and subsequently is illegally stealing my property to utilize for his own purposes. I have not authorized any business to appropriate my tips for me. I will choose who my tip is intended for.

Lauren, you are way out of line for asserting that I am out of line for attempting to protect my private property.

How can I be out of line for simply attempting to protect my private property?

It’s my tip. Please explain why a business owner, rather than I, should decide who my tip beongs to?

Don’t you see how ridiculous it is for an employer to decide who is going to share in the customer’s tip? It’s not the employer’s property. Customers have not authorized the employer to appropriate tips for them. On the other hand, an employee who is given a tip is authorized to pool or appropriate the tip in any manner he or she chooses.

It’s like restaurant owners want to pretend that customers are authorizing the restaurant to appropriate their tips for them. Of course, if I were to pretend that the money in their cash register was mine to use however I choose, I would be locked up in jail. Why the double standard?

Employers who mandate tip pooling should be locked up in jail. Is that straight forward enough? I say they are stealing my property. Who, other than myself, can accurately know whether or not a business is stealing my tip?

Yeah, well I think most of us could agree that Wayne is a blithering asshole. I’d like to see him live off a wage depending on the generosity of others- especially in the economic times we’re enduring. Also, I’d like to point out that my tips are OVER reported due to the computer systems utilized through most restaurants. My last paycheck (1/6/10) was for 55.42 hours and I was paid $71.16. Yeah, “tax free money” sure is nice to pay bills with.

It disgusts me to witness such blatant arrogance. Not tipping at a restaurant that employs “illegals?” I’d like to know how Wayne knows without a doubt there are illegals hired at a particular establishment. Wayne seems pretty confident and I’d like to enlighten him to the fact that depending on his jurisdiction, he himself could be prosecuted for not alerting the police. Instead of screwing the server, why doesn’t he turn the particular restaurant into the authorities? (On a side note, I’d like to know how a person himself can be referred to as an “illegal?” Political correctness aside, illegal or not, does that mean that your children, Wayne, are more entitled to eat than the children of someone you would refer to as an “illegal?”)

Many people assume that servers and bartenders are unmotivated and uneducated when in fact, many of us are quite the opposite. My serving job helped put me through 4 years of college and will also help put me through the next three years of law school.

If the service was rude and inattentive, tip 10% or better yet, nothing. But when the service is attentive, the server polite and the service quick, please remember these people have bills to pay, just like you do.