Restaurant horror show: How waitstaffs are mistreated

[marmar]

from Salon:


Restaurant horror show: How waitstaffs are mistreated
Almost 10 percent of the U.S. workforce is in the restaurant industry. Why is it legal to treat them so poorly?

By Matt Frassica


Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville, Ky., was a monument to the power of kitschy sculptures and loud colors. Coverage in magazines like Bon Appetit and from TV personalities like Oprah and Bobby Flay brought tourists, and tourists ate fare like bourbon ball French toast and Hot Brown sandwiches. Weekend mornings, you could count on the place being packed with people whose idea of a good place for brunch involved a collection of ugly lamps and $13 Bloody Marys.

But then in January, a former server named Leila DiFazio accused Lynn’s management of firing her over a new policy that paid servers credit card tips on their paychecks rather than in cash at the end of the night, and required waiters to bring $100 cash to work every day to share tips with untipped staff members. DiFazio refused to comply.

“Bringing in $100 each shift is unrealistic for me because I am (a) single mother of a 2 and a half year-old-boy,” DiFazio wrote on the website of an organization called Kentucky Jobs With Justice, part of the national group Jobs with Justice.

Kentucky Jobs With Justice printed DiFazio’s story as a flier and distributed it around the restaurant. The next day, without explanation, Lynn’s closed. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/restaurant_horror_show_how_waitstaffs_are_mistreated/

[onehandle]

1. I worry about people who live on tips.

A buck is not worth what it used to be and I think many don't get that when tipping.

It's even worse with valets, pizza delivery people, car washers, and others existing off of single action tips.

Are you tipping the valet the same single buck you tipped them ten, twenty years ago?

Think about it.

[southernyankeebelle]

3. Who is sharing the tips I wonder? I mean the cooks make more money then the waiters/waitresses.

That wouldn't be fair.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. Bussers get around 6% in some stores

It's not the first time I've heard of servers having to bring their own bank. It depends on the restaurant but the practice has been around for some time from what I understand.

[theKed]

23. Unfortunately, that buck or two

is the same or more portion of most people's earnings receiving the service. Average earnings haven't grown with inflationary increases in product/service costs.

Fixing that goes a long way to making tips bigger (among many other things).

(this is as someone in the restaurant industry for many years, and someone who always "over"tips)

[roxy1234]

2. I ran into one of those tip workers yesterday

I went to a Chinese buffet yesterday and as we were chowing down, my friend I am started arguing about the pay of the waiters. I took the position that they earned minimum wage plus because it did not look like a tip restaurant and 2, I assumed they paid more than burger king who pays more than the minimum wage

Anyway, we eventually called one of the waiter to the table and we asked him if it was true and he said yes. I have to tell you, I felt so bad about it because I have been going to this place for a while now for lunch and I did not know they earned $2 ish/ hr. I left $20 on the table with my tab and I will from today onward tip my 10% instead of the occasional $1 on the table.

Edit: 20% tip not 10%. I rarely dine in at restaurants (take out guy) but when I do, we usually split the bill and someone tips or someone (usually not me) pays for the whole tab.

[southernyankeebelle]

4. Yes it's true even in a place like Applebees. Tips are really important to many of these women.

Many of these women have children and trying to make it. Many pray they can make a decent tip by the end of their shift. You know not everyone can afford to go to college.

[Beaverhausen]

5. 10%? That's still pretty low

Standard is 15%. I usually tip 20% unless service is bad.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. For buffet service it's generally considered a good tip at 10%

For adequate service some guides suggest as little as 5%. The lower rate is based on waiters who don't do much in the way of service. 10% is considered adequate for counter service too.

In reality, a lot of buffet servers get stiffed even in Vegas where they fall all over you to provide service.
Just one more reason I really hate tipping-as-a-substitute-for-wages.

[madinmaryland]

20. "Just one more reason I really hate tipping-as-a-substitute-for-wages."

That says it all.

[Scootaloo]

10. 10%? Wow, don't break your arm with that back-patting

I don't mean to be a dick, but even in the 1950's, 15% was the norm. 10% is just meager. I guess it's better than writing pithy advice as a"tip," but still.

20 - 25% is the modern minimum, for the exact reason your friend was telling you. If a server waits your table and its two-course, four-person $50 meal for an hour and a half and come out of it with a little over seven bucks - two dollars under minimum wage?

[roxy1234]

12. Easy

I really dont know the tip etiquette and just said 10% thinking it was the rate. But believe me, I will be tipping even more than that next time I go in there. These guys make less than $3/hr.

One more thing, barely anybody at the restaurant tips their waiter, i suspect most of the patrons think they are paid regular wages.

[jeff47]

14. Depends. It's fairly normal to tip less in buffet restaurants.

Since the server is only bussing the table - and not splitting a tip with a busser.

I still tip the same, but the norm is to tip less.

[aikoaiko]

21. I do 10% at self-serve buffets and takeout,

20 - 25 at sit down dinners.

[Demo_Chris]

6. We need SERIOUS change in this country

[Occulus]

11. Yes we do.

[AnnieK401]

19. Agreed. I always tip about 20% for a sit down full service meal

at a restaurant and usually smaller tips (a dollar or so) for take out. I do this because I know many waitresses are single mothers dependent on tips. Still, I am on a very limited income myself and am having to take money out of savings each month to get by. That extra money is not easy for me and others to "cough up." I could stop eating out (and do eat out less) but how is that going to help food service workers? But to be fair, I know many restaurant owners struggle just to stay open. Many lose a good deal of money every month, so how are they going to pay their staff more? No easy answers.

[Demo_Chris]

22. It's the same problem across the board... (cont)

We have become a binary society; there are those with money and then everyone else. The top 10% or so -- those making 115K a year and up -- seriously should be doing fantastic. They are, after all, in the top 10%, which makes them WEALTHY by any objective measure. And yet many of these top 10% are struggling and they certainly do not see themselves as rich.

The same even applies to the top 5%. The cutoff there is about $180K, and again you hear them complain that they are barely making it. Obama apparently agrees since he just gave them, and people even wealthier, a permanent tax cut. Again, these are the top 5%. If being in the top 5% doesn't make you rich what does? However, they might be in the top 5%, but the curve goes vertical once you pass that point, and the curve is skewed because the people in the bottom 80% effectively have no wealth or income at all.

And that's the problem. The country isn't broke. Nowhere close. We have so much wealth it staggers the imagination. You need to be a mathematician or theoretical physicist to get your mind around the numbers. But it's all at the top. And worse, prices and values do not reflect this absence of wealth, largely because the "value" is in play money.

Which terrifies the hell out of me because it tells me that we are facing a genuine crisis.

Take housing for example. Housing prices crashed hard, and now we are told they are rebounding. But who is buying them and with what money? That's the question. How many are being sold for private use compared to the number being purchased as potential investment property? In a nation in which Walmart and other minimum wage / part time companies are our largest employers, when 100K is the top 10%, what percentage of the population can afford a house? Which suggests they are still grossly overpriced.

I think we are looking at massive deflation and collapse, and the fine folks from both parties in Washington aren't even trying to slow it down. They are looking to get rich from the crash, and helping their corporate buddies pillage everything they can before it goes. They are looting the treasury in the form of corporate bailouts and incentives, they are buying up every asset they can get their hands on including our roads and bridges, and now they are trying to get their hands on social security and pensions.

[AnnieK401]

26. Great Response - just remember

there are by definition many more of us than "them." And not all of "them" are completely obsessed with money. Of course the problem is that too many of "us" are blinded by the Republican/Fox narrative. Sigh.

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!!

[LiberalEsto]

9. My daughter works at a Ruby Tuesday

and I'm not sure if they still do this, but they did when she worked there years ago, requiring her to carry $100 for tip-sharing..

I'm pretty sure she still has to share tips, though.

God I hate these rotten business practices.

[Roland99]

15. Lynn's closed abruptly in Jan. Lynn only issued this statement later >>>

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Lynns-Paradise-Cafe--188383561.html

I never had a chance to eat there in all my years of living in Louisville but it was definitely a landmark.

[A Little Weird]

18. I didn't realize they had closed

I went there a couple of times and it was always good. I'm sad to hear they treated their employees that way. I think the whole tipping system is ridiculous.

[blackspade]

25. This was a cynical

statement!

Playing the victim, nice.
Lynn will set up shop again, with new investors and very little baggage.
See, she is all heart-broken about her failure as a business owner.

[marble falls]

16. That $100 bank & paychecked charge tips is SOP and so is pooled tip and tipping out kitchen and ...

Last edited Thu Mar 14, 2013, 11:14 PM - Edit history (1)

hostesses.

[sangsaran]

17. We really need to crack down on restaurants.

And force them to comply with minimum wage, while we're at it.

If your business model revolves around robbing your most successful employees so you can afford to keep others on staff...

[blackspade]

24. As a former restaurant

worker and manager, the way most restaurant owners and many managers treat their employees is appalling.
Rear of house staff, while payed minimum, and i mean minimum wage and are often cheated on hours with forced clock-outs (resulting in off-the-book labor) and generally abused in scheduling and clothing requirements.
Wait staff, including servers, bartenders, expediters, and sometimes bussers are treated even worse.
Wait staff generally try to take care of each other, but sometimes the servers/bartenders keep it all on bad nights.
While I hated this as an expediter and busser, I totally understood. I always viewed this as a management issue rather than an employee one.
As employees we were expected to make a customer happy to prompt resales, but it was often that management created an atmosphere that was uncomfortable for patrons either by passive neglect or active interference.
This is in addition to poor business practices that were often 'covered' by employees eager to maintain a place of employment.

This Lynn's story is a great example of typical restaurant job.
As a patron there on several occasions, I noticed a decline in service over the years.
Based on my experience, I immediately connected this to job insecurity, which I feel is the No1 factor in poor job performance.
But the real kicker was this observation coupled with huge price increases, a sure sign of business instability.
I have a feeling that Lynn's was on its way out and the owner used this excuse to cover for their poor management.
That is the only way to maintain their street cred for business lenders/investors.

[HiPointDem]

27. kr