An Italian holiday may be a priceless experience for those who have enjoyed all this country has to offer. But the summer of 2023 will go down as one of the priciest in history after a slew of price gouging scandals at cafes and restaurants that have affected foreign tourists and Italians alike.
Yeah, the min wage fight is important no debate there.
The tip fight is important as well though and shouldn’t be ignored. It’s an attempt by capitalists to make customers pay employees wages for them. It’s spreading to all service industries and we might as well stop it everywhere all at once.
It’s not an attempt for anything. It’s a result of harder times that unfortunately stuck. While I feel like tipping should go away eventually I just don’t see it as a priority. If we take it away they’ll just raise their prices and still keep their employees at minimum. So many will be worse off than they were before unless we get min up first. Just my opinion but I’m telling you I’d never do that job for minimum wage. It’s a hard job and the extra pay in tips barely makes it worth it.
The “they’ll just raise prices” narrative is just a scare tactic. In the end the customer is paying for it whether in tips or cost. The amount you’d have to increase price is TINY for most business cases.
Also the fact you’d never do the job for min wage is exactly the point. If enough people wouldn’t do the job for min wage, restaurants won’t be able to pay min wage. That’s what the current labour shortage is about. No company that pays their employees what they’re worth has a labour shortage. Tipping culture is spreading to many industries and this massively reduces wage pressure on employers. Wage pressure is the rising tide that lifts all boats!
What other industry is looking like it’s going to embrace tipping as a primary source for pay? Random businesses have always tried here and there with tip cups or a random line on their tablet software but I haven’t seen anyone even try to make a slippery slope argument for this.
What lifts all boats is raising minimum wage for everyone.