There are restaurants with flat service charges -- Per Se is one example -- but I think the supply of waiters and waitresses indicates that the market is working fine. I mean, slave labor is a bit hyperbolic.
True, but the supply and demand of/for wait staff manages to equalise in countries (such as Australia) where tipping isn't the custom too.
Also note as a technical point, market failures (where they occur) don't necessarily (or even usually) result in a disequilibrium between supply and demand. Monopolies, for instance, still result in an equilibrium market. American health care is kind of crippled with adverse selection problems, it still finds an equilibrium pricing point.
I don't think there's a market failure here, but I do think the 'tipping risk' (if I can call it that) isn't falling on the party most able to manage it. (Service staff can influence it, and perhaps should be partly exposed to its vagaries, but there are also going to be service variations that aren't about the wait staff and customer variation that isn't about anyone.)
Finally, as one with experience in both systems, I'd say the customer also bears part of the cost. The service I get here in Australia is perfectly fine compared to the American, but I also have to pull these mathematical calculations at meal end. Here I don't have to, and still have the explicit option to tip to reward good service if I feel it's warranted.
So yes, it's not any dire sitution, but I do think that the current arrangement sees the owner pass some of his responsibilities onto the customer, and some of his risk onto the wait staff. I think that's not the best arrangement.
There's also an incentive for the restaurant owner to put other tasks on the waiters, such as table clearing, that have traditionally gone to non-wait staff (i.e., busboys, or whatever they're called these days) because busboys get minimum wage and waiters get a lot less. That means there's less time for the waiter to provide good service to the customers on whom they're waiting (thus likely driving down tips) and less of a market for busboys.
Fay, I meant to comment on the "you must obviously be black" comment as well -- I am also surprised it went apparently unnoticed.
I didn't see the black and steak with ketchup thing... that is really bad.
There's also an incentive for the restaurant owner to put other tasks on the waiters, such as table clearing, that have traditionally gone to non-wait staff (i.e., busboys, or whatever they're called these days) because busboys get minimum wage and waiters get a lot less.
I think that incentive thing is true for many, many things. Somehow someone got the idea that they could make even more money if they didn't have enough workers. For example, when I was a teenager working in a grocery store we always had ample cashiers, two full-time people to take groceries to the cart and bag, stockboys who could bag and take groceries out at night, bottleboys who just did bottle returns, carts and occasionally helped on the service desk, and service desk people. This is in addition to the department staff, managers, deli, meat, produce, etc. The emphasis was really on making sure that there were enough people there that the customer was always helped, and if there were no customers, you stocked the candy or cigarettes or whatever. The people who made the schedule would get in trouble if there weren't enough people on
By the time I left, there were no baggers, no bottleboys (and man, let me tell you that doing the service desk by yourself and then having a 1200 bottle order come in was something else), and the bare minimum of cashiers. It was a very different culture.
I am also surprised it went apparently unnoticed.
I have to admit, at that point in the comments thread I was pretty much only reading the capslock.
I mostly meant unremarked-upon on the Chow site itself, not here.
I don't know much about the economic structure in the restaurant business, but I would be happy to pay an additional 20% or more for my meals if the staff was paid a decent wage and had benefits. It would be fine with me if salons and taxis were structured that way too.
My step-dad used to drive a private bus from a residential community to their beach access. It was minimum wage but supplemented with a tip jar that riders used daily, weekly, once a season, whatever worked for them. The Man decided the tip jar was tacky and put a sign in the bus indicating No Tips. He doesn't work for them anymore.
Wow, you know what I really don't want to do today? My job. I'm happy enough to be here in the air conditioning, but am wondering if I can just screw around online all day. I bet I can!
I have two piles of papers on my desk. I can't remember what stage of the proces any of this stuff is in. It's going to take half the day to work that out.
