I wonder if the whole “we don’t have to pay you minimum wage“ and the “you have to share your tips with the rest of the staff“ is coming back to bite restaurant owners in this post pandemic landscape.

maybe the restaurant industry should be lobbying the government to not tax tips.

or actually pay minimum wage, pool tips, and raise prices to match the wage. That said, I’m not in the business. I’m just a consumer.

A lot of restaurants did away with sharing tips with the rest of the staff, although servers were required to tip out bartenders based on their alcoholic drinks.

I paid for a lot of college with tips I earned bussing tables. We got 10% tip out from servers - allegedly. Those whose honesty was reliable got their tables bussed first and had higher turnover. This benefitted me as well.

Something I see today that I did not 50 years ago is food runners. I can see the advantage of a tip out to runners. But at the end of the shift when you tip 10% to bussers, 10% to bartenders and 10% to runners, that’s 30% less than customers thought you were receiving. I do see how we went from a 10-15% to 18-22% custom.

I’d be in favor of some restaurants eliminating the tipped wage and paying a flat hourly wage. I do think the professionals would still gravitate to places where better service yields a better paycheck.

Something that hasn’t been mentioned above: restaurant work is a huge pool of jobs requiring no drug testing. Those who have abandoned the industry because the job sucks may have second thoughts when hiring managers in other industries tell them they can start right after the lab sends the results of their drug test.

Some do, but a lot of my students who work as servers complain that they only get a fraction 70-75% of their tips and that the rest goes to workers who get full minimum wage. And it’s usually based upon sales, not actual tips collected.

The total sales often include to go orders which have very low tips, so the server keeps getting squeezed.

The evidence is in front of us, jobs are being created, unemployment is down to 5.8% and restaurants clinging to their old business model still can’t find servers.

Good point about drug testing. There are a ton of warehouses in my area, and all of them start out at $15-$20/hour, and promise upwards of $30/hour if you meet productivity goals. It sounds great for those looking for a change in career, except they all drug test.

In my city obviously the draw to being a server or bartender or even a Uber driver is that you can work in the evenings which is really helpful if you’re trying to become a country music star. You’re already working in the clubs in the entertainment district so the networking etc.

so you would think with the entertainment district opening back up that the servers would flock back to those jobs.

But so many of the wannabe stars (servertainers) left town and moved back home and they haven’t a moved back. Or they got other jobs.

Drug testing? That’s not a barrier in the least. If only my students worked as hard to pass my tests a they do to pass their drug tests, lol.

I think pay is the biggest reason for the service shortage. Not unemployment checks or drug tests or anything else. We raise our kids to be capitalists so we shouldn’t be surprised when why they try to seek out the maximum pay possible.

I don’t see how you fake a drug test. Maybe I’m just naive. Or maybe kids brag about something they’re not guilty of. I was randomly selected once and was escorted to the bathroom in the on-site clinic to whiz in a cup.

Pay is half the equation. My kids learned the best job is a comfortable ratio of effort to compensation. From watching me.

There are pills you take and drink a lot of water and you stop smoking for a week. The things you learn as a HS teacher that you never really needed to know. LOL.

There’s another factor that I read about as well and that’s how many of those server jobs were second jobs to a lot of people. A lot of the teachers used to have server jobs as their weekend supplemental income job. Many found other jobs when the pandemic hit, or cut back expenses, plus the stimulus payments have allowed people to afford to live without needing a second job. There’s a lot of interesting stuff at play, like a big reset happening.

Just a couple thoughts. I know this thread is specifically about server shortage, but there's actually a worker shortage for lower paying jobs in general, even with nearly 6% unemployment. If it were just restaurant workers, logic would dictate that it's something about that industry. But it's more wide-spread, so I think the logic points to the fact that, coupled with the $1200/month bonus, it's not just about tips or workplace, it's about making the same (or near enough), or more, to stay home. But I whole-heartedly agree with you that workers have the opportunity to thrive within our capitalist system and better themselves financially. That's generally how the restaurant industry works. A large number of servers don't stay in the job or the industry forever, it's a way to make money while they go to school during the day or supplement other income, or whatever. That's always been the case. And perhaps being forced out of their jobs for a year made them look around at other options -- great on the individual level! But doesn't explain the continuing high unemployment.

I hear you on the drug testing. I think it will discourage some, but my understanding is it's quite easy to pass a drug test these days.

Its weird that we were just discussing this today. Amazon is dropping testing for marijuana for most new employees.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/10024...-for-marijuana

Interesting.

I googled it. The last 3 pre employment drug tests I had were hair tests. The advice seems to be stop taking drugs 90 days before the test. How’s that gonna work when you said you’re ready to work in 2 weeks?

likewise how do you stop using a week before a random at work drug urine test? I had about 5 minutes to prepare for mine.

On top of that, I don’t think drug using restaurant workers are that clever. What they do know is that many if not most employers outside the restaurant industry drug test and most if not all restaurants do not.

So that's why takeout keeps tasting so different...

David

I’m not sure how they get around the drug tests. I did some part-time work at a grocery store between jobs that I know that the assistant manager passed the test using someone else’s saliva because he was the dope dealer for the store, including the store manager.

Marijuana apparently makes me have syncopic episodes (I faint due to a rapid drop in blood pressure) so I don’t partake, so I was asked but refused to do a saliva test for the assistant manager. No hair test for me as I’m bald.

I still find it interesting that Amazon is no longer testing AND financially supporting efforts to legalize weed at the national level.

Hmm. Wonder what the need more wacky tabacky is on Amazon's part. You'd think Uber Eats would get behind this....

David