There are laws in place for service workers related to minimum wage. The employers have to make up the difference if tips don’t meet the rate for hours worked. It seems to me that’s not sufficient for the times.
Hypothetically, if everyone were to stop tipping in the U.S. would things be better or worse for workers? Would employers start paying workers more?
Hot take but I think tipping culture is one of the main reasons why Americans are suffering from such large class issues.
In Japan tipping is offensive because it puts the customer above the server when it’s a fair exchange between the two parties. It makes sense imo. For people to respect each profession it has to be treated like an equal value exchange. The server that brings my food is not my temporary slave but we have a social contract that they’ll be hosting me as the representative of the restaurant and “forced donations” completely ruins this exchange. It’s incredibly toxic.