What?  Did you read what I wrote?  Jeez.  Pick someone else for your strawman.

And for those of you thinking that only the 1% (or top 50% or whatever) can afford to tip at 20%, I am a graduate student. Because I am in health-related research, I am fortunate enough to make a small living stipend and have my tuition paid for, but it’s not like I’m making starting salary for a position in my field that I could garner after my undergraduate education. But, I budget my groceries well, don’t use credit cards so that I don’t incur interest on my purchases, and when I go to a restaurant, I tip with someone like me in mind–someone who works a lot of hours and doesn’t make minimum wage when it’s divided up. Make no mistake, most discoveries are made by graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, but it’s the big boss who gets the credit because his writing funds the lab. For their education level, post-doctoral researchers are probably the least well-paid individuals on the planet, but they do it because they love it. When I see a waiter/waitress who is truly attentive, I like to believe that they like to make my night out really hassle free, and I like for them to get paid for doing so. After all, it’s one night where (a) I do nothing to prepare the food (b) I get to talk extensively with the people I am eating with (c) I am checked upon all evening and (d) I DON’T HAVE TO DO THE DISHES. That’s worth at LEAST 20%.

Confession: I once tipped less than 20% (12%) in college, because I asked the waiter to return my food (I ordered a veggie burger and was given a real one). She must have had a bad night because she through her pen down and slammed her notebook into my face (it didn’t hurt so much as surprise me to be touched forcefully by the waitress). I don’t pay my waitress to assault me. Looking back, I probably still should have given her at least 15%, because she was likely pushed to her breaking point by my drunken college counterparts at the table one over long before she ever took my order. At that time, you could pay for your food (but not tips) on your college card at this sit-down restaurant. She likely was not tipped at all by all of the disorderly men she had to care for. I might be a bit grouchy after that too.

I absolutely agree that the anecdotes we’re seeing in these comments constitute good information to have.  Thing is, they’re not coming from ROC.  All I see from ROC is a survey including notes about inequities but not including specifics about where they are, and a “guide” that names specific places but isn’t based on questioning workers about how things are in those places.  (Except inasmuch as management counts as a kind of worker, and ROC asked management to provide them with information about their organization as a whole.)  Given that, the guide does not tell “whether the restaurant has a policy of limiting women, immigrants and people of color to lower-paid `back of the house’ jobs.”

This is not for lack of trying to imply that it does.  The guide notes that occupational segregation exists in the industry, and then has a column in its table for “Opportunities for advancement”– but that column is based not on asking workers about their experiences in the corresponding organization, but on this criterion: “A restaurant receives an upward mobility symbol in this category if 50% or more of its current employees have moved up in position. If the restaurant has not provided at least 50% of its employees a promotion, it has a 0 listed.”  50% is a high number; a place with a broad and shallow organizational structure will have over 50% of its employees in the bottom echelon, and so couldn’t achieve this criterion even if ALL its higher-ranked workers had been promoted from within.  (And of course, many people advance in their careers by switching workplaces.  For instance, a line cook might be ready to become a sous chef well before an opening for another sous chef exists in the line cook’s own workplace.  Rather than waiting an indeterminable amount of time, they jump to another place that does have such an opening, parting amiably.)  Hence, I fear presence or absence of that up-arrow icon is more likely to have to do with semantic weaseling about “promotion” than anything else– for instance, counting going from trainee to regular employee as a “promotion”.

Also please consider that serving tables is at best uneven employment by nature. While you might have a 4 table section it won’t stay full they whole night, and you have to count on people unaccustomed to the dining experience etc. The bottom line is, %18-20 is PART OF THE PRICE of the meal. You are paying for the service of not having to care for yourself for a meal. The price of the meal is the price of the food plus the inherent price of the service.

Of course, I never paid for a crappy meal, either – the few times I was served anything like that, I got treated by people who wouldn’t know a gourmet meal from a Big Mac. (And I do not refer to Big Mac – those can come in great and crappy alike.)

But – I don’t believe that, fundamentally, people in these service jobs should be tipped. I think they should be paid a decent wage to begin with – the difference being passed on to the customer, of course. That’s what this argument boils down to – nobody (I hope) thinks that wait staff shouldn’t be paid a decent wage, and no one thinks the customer shouldn’t pay for it (I mean,  how else would it work). But why is the customer responsible for determining what that decent wage should be?

I get that this gives some power to the customer – you can adjust your tip depending on how good the service is. But it seems to me that when people receive bad tips, they don’t think it’s because they gave bad service, they think it’s because the customers are douchebags. People who are “supposed” to get tips feel entitled and lose sight of what tips are supposed to be for. Far more effective would be a system where, instead, the thing to do if you get bad service is to talk to the manager.

The most pleasant service people to deal with tend to be those who are well-paid and who don’t accept tips and don’t receive commissions. Places with such policies (including food places) are the places I’m most likely to spend my money. The tip-based system is, in my view, way outdated – and it’s miserable for all involved parties!

And those service people who are in a position to occasionally get huge tips? Even if tips were no longer considered compulsory, there will still be huge tips given for truly exceptional service, or as a form of bribery (like tipping the bartender so you get good service later when the bar gets more crowded).

You said: If anyone anywhere has evidence…

Not: ” If this brochure presents any evidence.”

If you want more evidence, peruse this thread, where people have been relating their lived experiences. Ignoring this information because people who do studies don’t give a crap about minority dish washers is, at a minimum, rude.

Sick leave is, as they note, a public health issue, and a potentially serious one– but it’s not a discrimination issue.

My comment was in response to your claim that they had not questioned workers.

From the anecdotes I’ve heard… we need evidence…

Anecdotes, more properly known as testimonies, are considered evidence under the law.

There’s no doubt but that discrimination is taking place; discrimination takes place in all industries.  From the anecdotes I’ve heard, I’d expect discrimination to be particularly common in the restaurant/hospitality fields.  But when it comes to identifying villains, we need specifics.  Further, we need evidence of these specifics.  We have to (I argue) make sure the alleged villains really are the villainous ones– lest we inadvertently drive neutrals or good guys out of business, while continuing to patronize the true villains and thus aiding them to prosper.

This is a hard problem; we’re talking about determining whether or not an organization is doing something that’s generally held to be immoral, and is definitely held to be illegal.  But that this is a hard problem means we have to be more careful, not less.

OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION Women, immigrants, and people of color hold lower-paying positions in the industry, and do not have many opportunities to move up the ladder. Among the 4,300 workers surveyed, we found a $4 wage gap between white workers and workers of color, and 73% reported not receiving regular promotions on the job.

4,300 restaurant workers who were asked about their sick leave and segregation disagree with you.

It makes sense to ask restaurants about their written policies directly, and then to compare that to how workers report that things actually work.

You mean evidence like surveying workers from various establishments? Because that’s exactly what they’ve done.

At the end of the day, I agree that the tip system needs to go away. Forever. The employer needs to pay the employee, and the customer needs to pay the business a fair price for their products and services.

Yet all of these laws are broken more often than not.

On the other hand, it’s not your job to tip for a crappy meal, or to make sure that the wait staff makes a living wage.

And before people start talking about how a day’s wages aren’t that much, the deal is that the common restaurant policy is that you can’t call in without a doctor’s note, which you can’t get without a doctor.

This is true in many states. Also true: You can’t be fired for refusing to have sex with your boss, you get an x break when you work y hours, employers can’t discriminate based on age, race, or apparent gender when hiring.

Yet all of these laws are broken more often than not.