Restaurant Employees Should Be Paid Minimum Wages

Customers pay companies for their services, and in turn, the company pays its employees for their services. This is how it always works, right? Apparently, not in the USA. You probably have seen, but not realized that only one specific industry does not follow this logical and fair chain of money transfer: the restaurant industry. In the restaurant industry, there is a custom known as “tipping.” Tipping is the act of customers paying servers, the employees of the restaurant, directly for their services because the restaurant, their company, refuses to do so themselves. That’s right on top of paying for the expensive bill stuffed snugly between that luxurious leather biltfold, you have to multiply that already large three-digit number by at least 15 percent because that is how much you are obliged to pay your server. Rather than the restaurant (the business) paying for its servers (the employees) the customer has to.

The business makes the customers shoulder the responsibility of paying its employees. How crazy is that!? In the 17 states, most servers are paid a meager wage of $2.13 per hour. This amount that beggars seamlessly acquire in a matter of minutes from generous Samaritans are earned by the server’s sweat and tears of skating around the tables carrying plates full of onions in an entire hour. It is because of this piss-poor wage selfishly reserved by the restaurant that the servers have to go searching elsewhere to make a living wage.

And that’s where tipping comes in. This negligence of the restaurant to pay its employees is the reason customers are required to pay extra, on top of the restaurant’s expenses, for their server. Now, why is that customers, instead of the business itself, should take responsibility for paying the business’ employees? That’s right, these restaurants are getting an easy pass for not paying their employees. Why is it that these for-profit businesses get to short-end their employees when most of them are very capable of paying their employees? Sounds very unfair and cheap and without a doubt, it is!

These businesses burden their own customers with the added costs of the server to the already surmountable bill. Tipping should be abolished, but not before legally binding documents obligating restaurants to pay servers at least minimum wage, is passed. Since we don’t want the employees to suffer, as they currently make a significant portion of their income from tips, we must make servers eaming at least minimum wage law. Grab your felt sketched cardboards ready, it’s time to protest!

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