I lived on tips for half of my adult life, and I was paid near or below minimum wage. I was a part of two labor campaigns, one to protect extreme working conditions in restaurants, another to win the minimum wage in Oregon for servers. Tipping is a false carrot that makes most servers think they can score big by fighting their co-workers for a big party or big spender. It is a neo-liberal hunger game. Pooling always worked better, and brought calm, sincerity and better service. But often, some benevolent customers subsidize the less generous. Servers will have to fight anew for their wages to gain parity. However, tipping can now transiiton into paying through various techniques, including a slight uptick in prices, which then is passed on to servers, who become stable through longevity and wages.
