by Tim Bayly on October 14, 2015 - 2:44pm
Labor laws have exempted restaurants from paying tipped waitstaff normal minimum wage. Instead they've only had to pay a "tipped minimum" to employees whose tips combined with hourly wages averaged at or above the minimum wage paid other workers. Workers in the back of the restaurant don't share the tips waitstaff receive which has led to a growing disparity between waiters, sommeliers, and bartenders, and back of house staff. Cooks make significantly less than waitstaff, but with changes resulting from the recent minimum wage uprising among fast food workers, it's about to get worse.
The tipped minimum wage currently is $5 and the full minimum is $8.75. Starting in January the state tipped minimum will go up fifty percent, from $5 to $7.50, while the regular minimum wage will go up only twenty-five cents, from $8.75 to $9. With cooks working simply for wages and waitstaff adding tips to wages, the inequality between cooks and waiters will get worse.
This has led New York City restauranteur, Danny Meyer, to announce an end to tipping in the thirteen restaurants...