“Your work should be judged by your boss, not by a stranger”says Adam Eidinger. After several years as a waiter, he begins to glimpse what many union workers in the United States crave: the possibility of not depending on tips.
The District of Columbia, where Washington, the US capital, is located, could shed the tipping culture that is deeply rooted in the country after a referendum in which 74% of voters approved that waiters have a minimum wage without the need for the extra money that the client provides.
However, the so-called initiative 82, which has not yet entered into force, has also caused a stir among restaurants, who do not see “any sense” in the proposal.
Measure will enter into force on January 1, 2023establishing a remuneration of $6 per hour the first year and gradually increase to minimum wage in 2027although it must first be reviewed by the Legislative Assembly of the District of Columbia.
If implemented, this territory would join Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington statewhere tips no longer come as standard.
After working in the restaurant industry and experiencing firsthand the ins and outs of the tipping system, Eidinger decided to advocate for workers’ rights and become one of the promoters of Initiative 82.
During his time as a waiter, Eidinger saw how the tipping system was “confusing” and gave rise to “wage theft”as well as discrimination against women and “non-white” workers by being tipped less than whites. “Your work should be judged by your boss, not by a stranger who judges you by your appearance,” he claims. EFE Eidinger.
The initiative has had the support of groups such as Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-DC), whose main organizer, Sophie Miyoshibelieves that will allow employees to circumvent “harassment from some customers”in addition to reversing what he considers to be the system’s main problem: the “extreme” difficulty in controlling where the money from tips finally ends up.
In the era of digital transactions, “most payments are made by credit card”, so workers receive their tips at the end of the month along with their salaryexplain to EFE Miyoshi: “There’s little, if not zero, transparency around that.”
Some Washington restaurants have already campaigned for the project not to prosper and the Board of the District of Columbia repeals it as it did with measure 77, the almost identical predecessor to measure 82, in 2018.
However, the spokeswoman for Phil Mendelson, president of the Board of the District of Columbia, assures EFE what “has no intention of repealing the initiative”.
Also there are workers who position themselves against. The proponents of the proposal calculate that only 10 percent do not give their support, something that ROC-DC attributes to “disinformation” promoted by opposition pressure groups.
And it is that the tip would not be removed, mainly because “it’s very hard to get rid of” in America and still has a “good future” in the American system, predicts EFE Michael LynnProfessor of Consumer Behavior and Marketing at the Cornell University School of Management.
Store owners have already warned that they will have to face the possibility that customers choose to contribute less extra money or not to do so at alleither by creating a service fee or raising menu prices to keep their workers.
This is the case of the Taberna del Alabardero in DC, whose manager, José Ramón Pereiracalculates that the application of this initiative, in his opinion “populist” and “nonsensical”, would mean 10 percent more expenses. For that reason, They consider adding a 10 percent service fee to the account.
The tips they receive the waiters in this restaurant in the heart of the city represent 95 percent of their salaryfor which Pereira argues that “this type of business would be unfeasible” in the District of Columbia.
“In no restaurant in DC that is within the law, nobody earns less than the minimum,” recalls Pereira, since the law currently establishes that if the tips do not allow the worker to reach the minimum wage, the owner must pay the difference. “This is already covered, it doesn’t make any sense,” she adds.
In contrast, the manager of the Mi Casita restaurant, Alberto Vazquezsees the initiative as an adequate response to inflation, although he warns that adjacent states such as Maryland and Virginia are not governed by it and thinks that “Most of the employees go to look for work elsewhere.”
There’s not just that possibility, says Lynn, who was a waiter in the past: “Restaurants are having a hard time getting people back to work after the pandemic.”
Lynn argues that the “guaranteed” salary, along with the long hours waiters have to work, has forced them to look the other way and seek employment outside the restaurant industry, which has occurred “all over the United States” and casts doubt on whether this competitive restaurant model is really the one whose days are numbered.