BERKELEY, Calif. — THE announcement on Wednesday by the New York restaurateur Danny Meyer that he was eliminating tipping at his restaurants shows that he understands the impact tipping really has: It has created a two-tiered wage system with deep social and economic consequences for millions.
Mr. Meyer’s move to establish a transparent, fair salary for his staff is laudable, and I hope it will help set a new standard for the industry. But to achieve change across the restaurant business nationwide, we need reform to the law that has created a lower minimum wage for tipped workers.
Last month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo threw his support behind a statewide $15 minimum wage for all New Yorkers, but his proposal is expected to exclude the state’s 380,000 tipped workers. Despite the planned raise to $15 an hour already approved for workers in the fast-food industry, most restaurant staffers will continue to suffer under a lower minimum wage. Median pay for a tipped worker in New York, including tips, stands at just $9.43 an hour.
The omission of these workers in New York not only perpetuates an unfair pay system — in particular, one that reinforces pay inequity for a largely female work force — but also extends an ugly, racialized history. The practice of tipping originated in the aristocratic homes of feudal Europe. Then, in the 19th century, Americans returning from travel abroad would attempt to tip workers here to show that they knew the rules of Europe.
Toward the end of that century, a powerful anti-tipping movement arose. It called the practice undemocratic and un-American, arguing that employers, not customers, should pay their workers. In turn, American restaurant owners and railway companies fought to keep the system on the grounds that tipping was a legitimate alternative to wages — especially since many of their workers were African-American, in many cases freed slaves whom these employers resented having to pay at all. One writer of the period noted that he could never feel comfortable tipping a white person, since the practice should be reserved for “Negroes.”
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