Do you tip for service, or to pay the wage of the waiting staff?
A waitress writes…
As a seasoned waitress who has worked in a variety of restaurants, I can assure you that, unless the restaurant in question is part of a big chain, your credit card tips will in fact be lining the ample pockets of the restaurant owner.
Collectively, customers are paying the majority (and in some cases all) of the waiting staff’s wage. Their credit card tips are added to our pay slips as ‘service’ tax deductible and a means by which the restaurant owner can pay a ‘maximum’ wage of £2.50 per hour.
As a customer you are multi-tasking; gracing the premises with one’s valued custom, paying the marked up prices on food and wine, whilst simultaneously paying the wage of the waiting staff (knowingly or not). Shouldn’t you rightly expect to know where your money is going?
Despite how it may appear on the bill, tipping is, almost always without exception, discretionary. Therefore, if you choose to tip us, may I suggest leaving a cash, as opposed to a credit-card, tip. Remember your tip will then be contributing to the waiting staff’s third pound, rather than the owner’s third brandy!
A final thought is that as a customer one cannot fail to notice varying standards of service provided in the hospitality industry. I believe the ‘creative’ ways of retaining tips as wages can only lead to a decline in these standards. A tip as an incentive can only serve to benefit the waiting staff themselves, improve the quality of service, positively affect the reputation of the restaurant and, most importantly contribute to the valued customer’s over-all satisfaction.
Suzi, waitress in the Midlands
Call to waiting staff
Roy Hayter’s Media Review from Vol 10 No 3 fills the background
A rare quality contribution to the on-going debate. Shocking exposé intermingled with erudite, informed, perceptive, well argued suggestions on how matters might be put right from Ross Raisin in The Guardian G2 (11/6/08). Raisin is a novelist, and has been a waiter for about ten years. He describes the abuse of service charge as insidious. When the BHA surveyed 150 restaurants, every one of the 148 respondents had a different policy on tipping. This makes it difficult, Miles Quest told Raisin, to get agreement on a code of procedure.
But let’s skip the many malpractices out there, for possible solutions beginning with the singly discouraging:
In response to a parliamentary question, the business secretary, John Hutton announced that the government was seriously looking into the issue.
Quickly moving on:
Meanwhile, the trade union Unite has launched the Fair Tips charter campaign. You should see fair tips stickers appearing in the windows of restaurants that have signed up. The stickers confirm that an establishment complies with a fair code of practice, including guaranteeing to pay all employees at least the minimum wage with 100 percent of tips added on top.
…The best system I have worked with is the sharing out of tips equally among all floor staff and kitchen porters, which they did when I worked at the Riverstation, in Bristol. These are generally the most enjoyable places to work and, I believe, to eat in.
And where Raisin works now:
all tronc money is given back to staff, and the national minimum wage is not undercut. It can ensure that all floor staff are paid equally, for one. It also provides a means of paying income tax on waiter’s tips. And it means the tronc master can spread the thick times over the thin to ensure the wage is consistent… Unite is also campaigning to change the present law, which stipulates that national insurance contributions are not due on tronc payments, meaning many waiters are ineligible for state benefits and pension.
The poor conditions which generally prevail, he observes:
make the profession a transient one, and the transience makes it difficult to do anything about the poor conditions. If more waiters voiced their concerns, there would be a greater chance of change.
The BHA’s view
Press release from the British Hospitality Association on the service-charge consultation proposal by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), announced on Wednesday 19/11/2008
The hospitality industry is well aware of the proposals by BERR and the British Hospitality Association, incorporating the Restaurant Association, is working hard with its members to prepare for it.
However, the industry is currently facing the huge challenge of increasing costs and a rapidly falling consumer spend and it is therefore vital that the change is implemented in the right way to protect the thousands of employees in the industry, whose jobs could be at risk from the increased costs this change will place on businesses during a time of economic downturn.
In order to reduce the risk of job losses and business failures, the industry needs time to adjust its financial and operational models.
The BHA is also leading the hospitality industry in addressing the Government's calls for greater transparency about how tips are distributed. The BHA is working with its members to develop a best practice guide to ensure customers feel confident about how their tips are used. The guidelines will seek to boost customer confidence and enable the hospitality industry to demonstrate its commitment to transparency.
Bob Cotton and Miles Quest
Editor's note: The British Hospitality Association, incorporating the Restaurant Association, is the national trade association of the hotel, catering and leisure industry, representing more than 45,000 establishments with over 340,000 rooms and employing over 500,000 people.
