U.S. Politics: You Didn't Think It Would Be So Easy, Did You?

[DMC]

Just now, lokisnow said:

I understood but it is also putting the rich kid cart before the poor kid horse. Benefits Such as you describe are indexed to per hour wages.

Then propose and demand a benefit system that isn't.  You're continuing to project positions upon me that I never suggested.

1 minute ago, lokisnow said:

Doing the benefits first is precisely and exactly backward and would create an even stronger financial incentive for capital to fight even harder against the wages side of the equation.

No, it's more realistic.  You're not going to change the tips system in the service industry, it's too entrenched.  The best you can do is what @Martell Spy mentioned in Washington and up the floor to minimum wage (plus tips), but that's not going to change much for an individual.  Forcing owners (I like how you've now repeatedly used "capital" like you're Engels or something) to provide benefits in the service industry, however, is a plausible legislative proposal.

6 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

also, snidely doing (in your mind) what “is best” for people because they don’t really “need more money” as was so horrifically stated above is some republican level bullshit rhetoric.

  I'm all for bartenders getting paid more.  I was pointing out that there was another issue that I think deserves more emphasis.  If you can't figure that out that's a you problem.

8 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

also, if it were true it would mean universal basic income is a crock of shit. Hmmm...

Please let's not have another UBI discussion.  Soo boring.

[lokisnow]

Yeah maybe it’s not clear. I am saying we should end split roll minimum wage.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I am saying we should end split roll minimum wage.

K, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "split roll" in this context, but if you mean changing it to something like the Washington example, sure.  I just think any wage issue is inherently tied to the larger importance that the federal minimum wage needs to be drastically increased.  Whereas providing restaurant workers with benefits is a more focused issue.

[lokisnow]

Split roll is having two wages, in this case normal minimum wage and tipped minimum wage. 

Just one minimum wage.

[Darzin]

The $2.13 thing is incorrect anyway, in that no one lives off tips, if you don't make at least minimum wage your employer is required to make up the difference the $2.13 thing is only if you make MORE than minimum wage from tips.

[Demetri]

9 minutes ago, Darzin said:

The $2.13 thing is incorrect anyway, in that no one lives off tips, if you don't make at least minimum wage your employer is required to make up the difference the $2.13 thing is only if you make MORE than minimum wage from tips.

Yep. Any tip that is applied via card is tracked automatically, but total declared tips ask you to include cash tips. It can be very easily manipulated and the tax due per dollar you leave the store with can be affected based on the honor system.

[Jace, Extat]

11 minutes ago, Darzin said:

The $2.13 thing is incorrect anyway, in that no one lives off tips, if you don't make at least minimum wage your employer is required to make up the difference the $2.13 thing is only if you make MORE than minimum wage from tips.

Oh, so it only exists to retroactively depress your wage when you exceed standard benchmarks?

Here's a thought. You should get paid by your employer appropriate to the service rendered. If consumers see fit to reward the worker individually, the employer has no right to that money. The worker is not the property of the employer. To suggest that a cash reward for a worker outside the organizational pay structure is in some way or percentage owed to the employer is fucking gross.

[Zorral]

No profit is too gross for a good capitalist.

 

[Demetri]

3 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Oh, so it only exists to retroactively depress your wage when you exceed standard benchmarks?

Here's a thought. You should get paid by your employer appropriate to the service rendered. If consumers see fit to reward the worker individually, the employer has no right to that money. The worker is not the property of the employer. To suggest that a cash reward for a worker outside the organizational pay structure is in some way or percentage owed to the employer is fucking gross.

It doesn't really DEPRESS your wage as any good server/bartender is looking to FAR exceed minimum wage and the goals are generally much more considerable than that every shift.

$2.13 is therefore the true minimum a restaurant/bar can pay their servers as they are legally required to pay any discrepancy between the actual tips claimed and minimum wage for that timeframe. Everyone should work a serving job at some point in their life. I'm not having a go at you, it is one of the few truisms by dad said that I ever fully embraced.

Here's how it normally works: You get a check for 0 dollars every 2 weeks because the $2.13 x hours worked generally doesn't cover the taxes a good server/bartender is accruing through declared tips. Those tips consist of known, credit tips and declared tips (cash tips). If you work 5 hours and have only 1 table pay credit and they leave you $20 but you have 10 other tables from which you make a total of $150 dollars in cash, the difference in declaring those cash tips can dramatically change your taxes and also possibly affect the restaurant if they notice you're underdeclaring.

It isn't always a terrible system. If you're good at it you can make a ton of money while being part of the bar scene in a way that adds money rather than detracting it. But it is unfairly stacked in a way that does make the server a "salesman" working on tips rather than as a salaried employee.

However not everyone hates it, I didn't in my years working as you could have obscenely lucrative days ($500+). Those who do it at a high level and professionally are much more driven than you might think.

 

[Darzin]

23 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Oh, so it only exists to retroactively depress your wage when you exceed standard benchmarks?

Here's a thought. You should get paid by your employer appropriate to the service rendered. If consumers see fit to reward the worker individually, the employer has no right to that money. The worker is not the property of the employer. To suggest that a cash reward for a worker outside the organizational pay structure is in some way or percentage owed to the employer is fucking gross.

I live in Washington where we do just this. My point is that no one in this situation is making less then the minimum, and most are making a fair bit more.  

[DMC]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

Split roll is having two wages, in this case normal minimum wage and tipped minimum wage.

That's what I figured, it's just an uncommon way to refer to minimum wage so I wasn't sure.

[Jace, Extat]

14 minutes ago, Demetri said:

It doesn't really DEPRESS your wage as any good server/bartender is looking to FAR exceed minimum wage and the goals are generally much more considerable than that every shift.

 

 

I've worked service before, I have an idea what I'm talking about.

 

1 minute ago, Darzin said:

I live in Washington where we do just this. My point is that no one in this situation is making less then the minimum, and most are making a fair bit more.  

Let me encyclopedia Brown this shit:

Employer is allowed to subtract, remove, excise, recover, take-a-fucking-way almost 75% of your paycheck if you are given cash rewards by customers and keep said amount of money as long as you make the amount they should be paying you regardless.

That is a beautiful, recursive little system of getting over on workers that has been so normalized that people who suffered under such practices actually defend it.

[Demetri]

2 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I've worked service before, I have an idea what I'm talking about.

That is a beautiful, recursive little system of getting over on workers that has been so normalized that people who suffered under such practices actually defend it.

Gotcha. I assumed based on your questions regarding $2.13 and basic payment habits that everyone in the industry who receives checks understands that perhaps you hadn't.

People are willing to engage in whatever kind of employment system they want. Seeing the advantages of working for tips versus a low way isn't "defending" a corrupt practice, it's assessing what people actually think. To assume they're brainwashed by some normalized system is exceptionally arrogant. Not everyone views it as them subtracting wages but providing an arena within which to make money. You say you have an idea what you're talking about but then indicting the thought abilities of these poor idiots that release that a certain bar job can make them a $1k weekend whereas another can't.

[Ser Reptitious]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

So we get shyte like this from Them which They dismiss as "unintended consequence."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/dccc-blacklist-incumbent-policy.html?

"Unintended consequence?" O, come on!  What else is it about, this protection of old white, almost all male, incumbents that their voters don't want in any longer? Including the white women who call themselves Dems but are anti-reproductive rights.

They are scared shitless that the same thing will happen to them as happened to the Republicans with the Tea Party take-over. And I remember how people back then warned that this would make the Republican Party unelectable (if only that had been true...). 

So with the Tea Party example in mind, I'm totall cheering on the left-wing equivalent to the Democratic Party! (Although let's be honest: the Tea Party is/was mostly crazy and super hard-core, whereas the AOCs of the world are very sane and rational. The very fact that their demands for things like reducing income inequality and greenhouse gases is seen as "far left" shows just how successful those TP buffoons were in moving the Republican Party to the far right!)

[Jace, Extat]

3 minutes ago, Demetri said:

Gotcha. I assumed based on your questions regarding $2.13 and basic payment habits that everyone in the industry who receives checks understands that perhaps you hadn't.

People are willing to engage in whatever kind of employment system they want. Seeing the advantages of working for tips versus a low way isn't "defending" a corrupt practice, it's assessing what people actually think. To assume they're brainwashed by some normalized system is exceptionally arrogant. Not everyone views it as them subtracting wages but providing an arena within which to make money. You say you have an idea what you're talking about but then indicting the thought abilities of these poor idiots that release that a certain bar job can make them a $1k weekend whereas another can't.

The fact that you can be (greatly or otherwise) rewarded by a third party for exceptional performance concurrent to execution of employment conditions does not make it ok for an employer to then take a bite out of your earnings.

This is how ridiculously stilted simple concepts of workers' rights are in this country. Being under employment does not make you property. Employers should pay fair, living wages, in return for services rendered. End of story. They have no claim to your earnings. Ever. And when you are defending a system that has rules specifically designed to allow the further transfer of wealth from the worker to the employer... SHOCK! you're anti-worker.

[TrueMetis]

1 hour ago, Demetri said:

It doesn't really DEPRESS your wage as any good server/bartender is looking to FAR exceed minimum wage and the goals are generally much more considerable than that every shift.

 

I'm confused here, how is it not depressing your wages. Say you made 200 in tips for an 8 hour shift. With minimum wage that's $258, but at the other pay scale that's $217. Maybe I'm not understanding exactly how it works, math was never my strong suit, but I can't think of a way where this doesn't mean making less money than you otherwise would, and maybe this doesn't matter for people pulling in tons of tips and making far above minimum wage. But for other people $40 can be the difference between eating or not. Like if you made $58 in tips, you've just gone from a $116 night to a $75 night, and I'd probably fucking stab someone if they did that to me.

[Demetri]

Just now, Jace, Basilissa said:

The fact that you can be (greatly or otherwise) rewarded by a third party for exceptional performance concurrent to execution of employment conditions does not make it ok for an employer to then take a bite out of your earnings.

This is how ridiculously stilted simple concepts of workers' rights are in this country. Being under employment does not make you property. Employers should pay fair, living wages, in return for services rendered. End of story. They have no claim to your earnings. Ever. And when you are defending a system that has rules specifically designed to allow the further transfer of wealth from the worker to the employer... SHOCK! you're anti-worker.

The problem with your analysis and understanding is that good servers in the U.S. probably make more than English servers where tips are frowned upon. https://www.totaljobs.com/salary-checker/average-waiter-salary

A good server is making more than that. French waiters complain about their tips decreasing despite a minimum wage, with one cited waiter saying that a good night is "200 euros in tips" but noting that the trend of tipping has diminished which affected his income more than the minimum wage does.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28793677

What you're missing is that a good server/bartender isn't worried about the minimum wage because they're trying to hit $40 an hour anyway. I'm not anti-worker. I'm simply telling you that the good workers in this field aren't worried about that tiny chunk because they've set goals far above what even a living wage would be. I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm saying your righteous indignation isn't shared by a sect of the service industry population that realizes that America's relationship with tips is a lucrative one for them and they rightfully don't want it to change because it is beneficial. You suggest they're being tread on. They disagree so by what authority do you claim that they misunderstand their own profession?

 I'm basing this on 10+ years industry experience at every level. I've worked for $2.13 + tips, minimum+ tips, management, from waiter to bartender in major corporations and mom and pop industries. I'm not defending any practice though. I'm telling you how people in the industry feel about it and how some of that side of things work. Please don't characterize that as unbridled love for the status quo. I just understand that it is a bit more complex than "dirty capitalists" because tipping norms are precisely how good servers make good money (the idea that you work for the table not the restaurant is key.)

[Demetri]

6 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I'm confused here, how is it not depressing your wages. Say you made 200 in tips for an 8 hour shift. With minimum wage that's $258, but at the other pay scale that's $217. Maybe I'm not understanding exactly how it works, math was never my strong suit, but I can't think of a way where this doesn't mean making less money than you otherwise would, and maybe this doesn't matter for people pulling in tons of tips and making far above minimum wage. But for other people $40 can be the difference between eating or not. Like if you made $58 in tips, you've just gone from a $116 night to a $75 night, and I'd probably fucking stab someone if they did that to me.

My phrasing was largely due to tips being the primary determinant of income. To further convolute, very rarely do folks work a full on 8 hour shift. Part of the appeal of the service industry is the ability to work a 4 hour night shift 5 nights a week and easily make 600-1000$. You're right, of course, that the $2.13 does lead to lower wages overall. But at restaurants I've worked that had a minimum+tips they were very much inclined to cut waiters (relieve them of their shift early) and have fewer waiters on the floor working more tables.

This is crucial to a restaurant environment because the shifts are, by nature, piecemeal and impromptu. Very often you'll appear and be given the choice to leave because it is slow that day. The problem really occurs on the super slow days when they use you to do more infrastructural projects that don't lead to a tip. When that happens, people are understandably furious. But that's because people in the industry view tables as money more than hours as the table is what leads to money.

Perhaps saying it doesn't depress was overly simplified as your math obviously shows. But if a server gets a paycheck above 25$ then he/she's had a really bad pay period. Server checks are 90% of the time simply used to offset taxes. That wouldn't change too much. But it does lead to the real problem and that is how tips are taxed. That's a whole other, complicated deal.

[ThinkerX]

4 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Go build a house for 25 grand as a pizza man or waitress now.

I'll wait.

Something like that is in the cards.  Been giving more and more thought to putting up a cabin (2 bedroom, 500-600 square feet) on the back side of the homestead.  Groundwork (driveway, road, well, septic, foundation) and material costs work out to $20,000 - $25,000.  Whether or not I'm still physically capable of the labor involved is another issue.

 

Note on the materials cost for building a house: discounting the cost of the land and the aforementioned groundwork (figure about $15-30 K for that deals, rules, and situational issues depending) and the material cost for a modest, simple 2 or 4 bedroom 1000-12000 square foot house is around $20,000 - and it would even be energy efficient. Hence, if you have the skills (or most of them, there were things I hired out - cement work, sheetrock, furnace) you could build a modest house for maybe $35-$45 K...and then have the assessors tell you its worth at least three times that.  I know people who have done this more than once.

[Jace, Extat]

I'm an egalitarian at heart.

I care about more than just the ones who succeed under the present system. Most people I know/have known never made more than occasionally mediocre money waiting tables.

Bar tenders, I'll admit I've known a fair few loaded bartenders. However the fact remains that you are defending a system which allows employers to avoid paying their laborers. Instead forcing them to perform like show monkeys in addition to the duties they discharge for the employer in pursuit of a livable wage that is then received from sources other than the employer.

That's taking advantage of folks.

The fact that some people can make ungodly amounts of money based off their personality is small comfort to a waitress who can't afford to turn on her air conditioning in San Antonio to make the apartment more comfortable after getting home from college unless she works so many hours begging for tips that she becomes a hollowed out flaxen shell of a person who is incapable of charming anyone but the guy at the liquor store who shouldn't be selling liquor to a nineteen year old.

Or maybe I'm a condescending bitch who has no idea what she's talking about.

The truth is out there.