Tipping Point for Restaurants

Do you regard yourself as a good tipper? Or is it something that fills you with dread everytime the bill for a meal comes round?

Who do you tip? Your hairdresser? Your taxi driver, cleaner or perhaps the person who delivers your groceries? Why is it considered routine to tip waiters and waitresses and hotel staff whereas good service at the check-out counter in a supermarket is rarely if ever considered worthy of an extra financial reward?

The Independent today launches a campaign for greater transparency and fairness in the restaurant industry when it comes to tipping staff and the distribution of money from service charges. I didn;t realise until today that money left as a tip on a credit card or paid as service change on a menu is legally the property of the employer to dispose of as they wish.

The article claims that “dozens of high-profile chains and restaurant groups, including Café Rouge, Strada, Carluccio’s, Caffé Uno and Chez Gérard, pay a basic salary below the minimum wage (which is set at £5.52 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older), and use service charges and credit-card tips to make up the take-home pay to meet or exceed the minimum wage.” Some restaurants deduct more than 10% of any service charge as a contribution towards administration costs.

Good on the Independent for trying to raise this issue up the agenda. If generous tipping does improve the quality of service then we should encourage it but too often it appears, it has become a way for employers to shift the burden of paying wages to their employees onto their customers.

Chain reaction: who gets what – and where See also Tipping around the world

Some related articles:

Marginal Revolution “What do we know about tipping”

Tim Harford: “Service charge is optional”

The Herald: Tipping is patronising – so let’s stop doing it

Amicus (trade union) campaign on tipping