Charity Smith
Staff Writer
Packhouse Meats in Newport, Kentucky has come up with a stroke of brilliance. It has banned tipping. Now we’ve all heard of places doing this before, but the owner, despite people jumping to conclusions and claiming mistreatment of his servers, has actually altered the pay structure for his employees. Now, they don’t get tips, but they make either $10/hr. OR 20% of their individual food sales for the shift, whichever is HIGHER. That’s a brilliant and simple solution. The employer pays the employees and the customer isn’t expected to make up the difference.
Tipping has become a rather contentious affair over the last several years, and I think this is one part of the solution. Pay your workers enough that they don’t have to depend on tips for the bulk of their pay. Charge more for your food if you have to, but at least pay minimum wage.
That said, while I don’t think eliminating tipping is necessary, redefining it most certainly is. Tipping is how the customer shows appreciation to the server (and to whomever else they wish to show appreciation). It’s not money that’s owed. It’s not required. It’s extra, hence the term ‘gratuity’. When you make tipping part of the pay structure, you shift the power dynamic. You turn the customer into a patron, in the medieval feudalist sense of the word, wherein the server is dependent upon the whims of a patron (read: bored person with money) to subsidize their work. Clearly this is not creating any kind of harmony in this relationship.
This guy in Kentucky has it right. Pay your people well and set up your pay structure in such a way that it’s in their self-interest to work hard and do well. Shocking concept, indeed.
Keep Up With PopWrapped On The Web!
Author
