Solidarity

These are probably dumb questions, but I figure it’s best to ask them rather than risk sucking.

* Does the 2 week bonus apply when you’re using a service or is that factored into the cost? I do have a standard tip for a maid service I employ but I hadn’t heard the bonus thing.

* For newspaper delivery, does 2 weeks mean subscription cost divided by 52 times 2?

Interesting. I didn’t realize we actually still had live-in care workers in the United States. Probably there is no reason to have this kind of labor in a country as wealthy as the US, but this kind of labor is still quite common in places like Singapore. You can have a live-in maid for very little, but you provide room and board. I think the concept is that with room and board paid for (and they don’t work around the clock – they are just available 24/7), it makes sense for someone who might otherwise be earning the equivalent of $2-3 per day.

I don’t tip garbage collectors or mail-deliverers, because they’re civil servants like me. My newspaper delivery people leave an envelope with the paper, and I mail a tip ($25) to them.

Don’t be too quick to jump for joy. Despite the president’s decree, demand curves will continue to slope downwards as they have always done which means these services will become less affordable and less accessible to many people who need them. It’s quite telling that use you services more likely to be used by wealthy people in your examples but the actual story is about home health services. How does this fit in with the president’s goal to contain rising healthcare costs?

The linked article contains a lengthy quote from a prior colorlines.com story, the last line of which is as follows: “Formerly incarcerated workers are subject to background checks when they apply for jobs, regardless of the severity of their conviction or the amount of time that has lapsed.”

Isn’t it the case that most US jobs now require (or are at subject the applicant to) a background check? And that employers or gatekeepers (e.g., licensing agencies, temp agencies) can run a background check regardless of whether you check the box that says you’ve been incarcerated?

I know this practice has a disproportionate impact on African American applicants, both because they are more likely to have been incarcerated and because the stigma associated with incarceration is greater for African Americans than it is for whites (see Devah Pager’s work). It seems to me, though, that it’s a rhetorical error to tie racial inequities in the applicability of minimum wage and related labor laws to racial inequities in the consequences of background checks. A political error, for sure, given the likely absence of popular support for any effort to ban background of potential home service workers.

Just FYI, US Post Office employees, like all federal employees, are *not* allowed to accept cash gratuities. You can give them gifts, but the USPS requests that gifts be valued at less than $20.

Just FYI, US Post Office employees, like all federal employees, are not allowed to accept cash gratuities. You can give them gifts, but the USPS requests that gifts be valued at less than $20.

Then fuck the USPS. What do they think you’re doing? Bribing the postman to bring you more letters? This is pure spite and can’t be explained any other way.

I had an argument on another blog about whether to leave a tip for the housekeepers in a hotel, which seems a complete no brainer to me, but a ton of people were saying they’d never heard of it. Am I being over-scrupulous (I’m still going to tip the housekeepers, whatever you tell me)?

Are trash collectors and mail carriers really paid a pittance?
A quick search showed that the mean annual wages of mail carriers was about $50k and for garbage collectors was $43k. That’s before benefits, which I suspect both groups generally get fairly lavishly compared with private workforce workers.

“Then fuck the USPS. What do they think you’re doing? Bribing the postman to bring you more letters? ”

Sadly, that’s exactly why. You know how sometimes you can’t get a good table unless you tip the Maitre’D? Or can’t get into a club unless you tip the bouncer? And if you live in NY, remember to give the doorman a bonus unless you want your life to be hell?

Well, the concern is that if you can give postworkers more than a de minimus amount, they’ll start “delaying” mail and giving better service for better “gifts.” All government workers work on the same basic deal.

From my POV (outside the US) all this tipping is the mark of a broken economic system. Very inefficient and repetitious rituals that risk expressing social subjection.

Answer me this: if I’m in the US and have X amount of $ for tipping, shouldn’t I instead target X as donations to collective action organizations (unions or others) that work for for more systematic political change?

“It’s a sign of the failure of the public sector as employers that I tip letter carriers ”

Hmm. The tradition of “Christmas boxes” for the mail carrier, refuse collectors, etc. in Britain is sufficiently old that the day after Christmas is named after it (Boxing day – obviously the people in question don’t call for their tips on Boxing day any more because it’s a public holiday, but that’s the origin). It may well predate some of these functions being in the public sector – coal heaver, remembered from my childhood, never was – but the postie has always been a government servant.

“Then fuck the USPS. What do they think you’re doing? Bribing the postman to bring you more letters? This is pure spite and can’t be explained any other way.”

This blew up in the UK just last week. The new Bribery Act. Makes bribery of government officials anywhere in the world a criminal offence in the UK. Certainly a change from the 90s when you could actually claim tax relief on foreign bribes you’d paid (as a company at least).

However, the definition of “bribe” and “government official” are so wide that the Post Office managers put out a warning to posties. Please don’t accept any Christmas tip more than £30 as that might be construed as a bribe. And the giver, the taker and the managers thereof could all be committing a criminal act.

One of those could be the law, could be idiot managers over reacting stories.

Tedra Osell: “However, if you are in the US … then refusing to ensure that the person who is serving you, personally, does not get adequately paid for that service is an asshole move, and hiding behind some Principled Statement About Donating Where the Money Will Do The Most Good only makes it more self-serving.”

If the agent insincerely merely says so then I see the problem. But if, as I described, the agent sincerely choose to instead divert those funds to more effective system change causes then I fail to see how your objection bites. In cases where snubbed tip-receiver feel strongly humiliated there might be a pro tanto reason for tipping that outweigh a more effective system change donation. But not all cases are like that.

Tedra, the total amount one would according to the social convention be tipping over the course of a year can be calculated and pooled, together with other conventional expenses, into a lump sum that you then intentionally give to more effective causes. Either for systemic goals domestically or globally.

http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/our-pledge/further-information.php
“By making the pledge you commit to giving your donations to the charity or charities that you think can best use it to eliminate suffering in the developing world. Some charities aim to do this directly, through medical or food aid; some do so indirectly by fighting the root causes of poverty via education or local governance; some do so at an even higher level by lobbying for fairer trade or more foreign aid. You are free to support charities operating at any level, so long as you sincerely believe that the chosen charity offers the most effective way of eliminating the hardships of life in extreme poverty.

The difference in the amount of good that charities can achieve for a given donation is staggering: some medical interventions are known to be more than 10,000 times as efficient as others.1 By focusing our attention on the charities that have proven themselves to be most effective, we can achieve much more with our donations and also encourage the charities themselves to put more effort into research on how effective their methods are. Efficiency sounds boring, but it is the difference between saving a life and saving 10,000 lives — the difference between saving a life just once and saving a life every single day throughout your career.”

I understand that it is a very human and social reaction to aid when you seen need or inequality in front of your eyes. As I said, depending on the circumstances there might be stronger reason for doing so in some cases. But often there is not. I’m rather rude and have the chance of saving more lives than polite and likely to save less lives. And you have no ground for dubbing that an “asshole move”. The fact is that every person I come into direct contact with in everyday life where tipping is conventional, however less well off they may be compared to other groups in my society, all are extremely well off on a global comparison. They/we are part of the global 1%. That matters when it comes to what how and where you should give.

actio: Your argument in #33 reads as tone deaf to me, like so many arithmetical arguments.

As with many informal practices, tipping is problematic, rich, and ambiguous. so I was kind of with you at #24. I’m not sure I understand it myself (see #26), but I do know that tips are not donations – that’s why they are called “tips”, not “donations” – and that tipping as a practice has evolved in many countries, with variations. The fact that tips are given for personal service does show there is a measure of reciprocity involved – that a tip is in part a thank you and that not tipping is, as Tedra #32 says, more rude than uncharitable.

Reducing cultural practices to their bare economic skeleton usually throws the baby out with the bathwater (like the arguments in favour of giving money rather than presents), and tipping is no exception.

Please don’t deny tips to people who depend on tips for a living so that you can donate to some organization that works for “change.” Waitstaff make less than minimum wage, and if you don’t tip, they don’t make a living wage. Ditto for the woman who cuts your hair (unless she’s the salon owner). If you don’t tip someone because you have some principle, that person suffers for your principle. You don’t suffer at all. You put the burden of social change on the person less well off–if you want to donate to organizations that work towards economic justice, fine, but do it on your dime, not theirs.

“Waitstaff make less than minimum wage, and if you don’t tip, they don’t make a living wage. ”

Worse; taxes are based on an assumed tip level. A waiter/ress who didn’t get tipped all night, who did $1,000 of business, would owe (IIRC) something like $20 at the end of the evening.

[note – the numbers are probably wrong; the point remains).

Actio, I get that you think that stiffing the waitress is morally commendable. I just prefer to make sure that my charity comes out of my wages, not hers.

“I’m sorry but you miss the core point: there are far worse afflictions in the world we live in than not making what is considered a living wage in an extremely affluent country. Millions in fact suffer horrendous agony and death each year because of malaria and other maladies that are extremely cost efficient to adress. Anyone who chooses not to tip, or to avoid almost any other expense that social convention ask for in a very affluent country, in order to aid the worst off more is most of the time morally blameless and most often commendable.”

Says the man/woman on his laptop and DSL connection. Have some courage of your convictions. You could probably raise a couple hundred dollars by selling a few trifling possessions. You could save a couple lives this year easy and do you really need a bed or a second pair of shoes?

Katya: When you say “her wages” you morally assume that the tip-receiver has a moral claim to a share of the worlds resources much larger than the claim human about to die early in agony. What is your reason for that?

I reason from two moral assumptions: all humans regardless of location share the same basic equal moral value. All humans have a fundamental right to not die early in horrible agony from easily preventable causes. Those rights generate duties on moral agents so strong that they override other, lesser duties, like those underlying the social conventions of tipping and many other conventional expenses.

To put it more bluntly, you simply assume that letting fellow humans die early in horrible agony is so morally unproblematic that you should dispense scorn and sarcasm against someone sincerely doing what they can to efficiently prevent such agony and death.

I find no moral reason to accept that.

MPAVictoria: I try to donate 20% of my income, which is in the bottom quartile of the european country where I live. I admit that I should do and I repeatedly try to find ways to do more. I’m sorry that I don’t live up to your standards. If you explain to me how you in your life has found reliable ways to do more to aid those worst off then I’ll try to learn from your example.

As with so many posts on this site, I’ve enjoyed the back and forth and found it very thought provoking. I tend to agree with the general notion of being generous about your tips, but I also see actio’s point (and MPAVictoria’s, which seem to be the same point but with a personal twist): in the grand scheme of things, tips to waiters and garbage men in the developed countries are less effective means of alleviating suffering than, say, mosquito nets in some malaria-stricken part of the world. Pretty much all personal consumption is as well. Also, sending your mother a card on her birthday is morally reprehensible by this reasoning. Without getting personal, I think the point is that the big picture dwarfs most of our concerns. I’d like to add something from my personal experience here, though. Giving to the people I know, whether it be the friends and family to whom I give gifts, or the garbage collectors, the mail deliverer, the waitstaff in restaurants I visit, has a direct effect on my relationships with those people. You can call it spiritual if you want, or emotional, or just plain social, but it has real meaning. Somehow this is lost in actio’s math. Yes, I am aware of the bad things that come from a reductio absurdem of this point, but so what. I do not acquiesce to the notion that a “bleeding heart” is a bad thing.

One other point that has been running through my mind since the OP mentioned nannies (and under the assumption that generous payments to the less-well-off within the developed world is a good idea): the scenario is a little different when you are the employer. Last year we had our daughter in a day care, where we became gradually aware that the workers were paid quite poorly indeed. In that realm, our generous tips were some partial reconciliation of the crappy remuneration we were partially responsible for. This year, we pulled the daughter out of day care in favor of a nanny (an obscene expense in light of actio’s observation, to be sure). But we have been able to give the nanny a living wage including a decent (paid) leave package. In that world, I’m flummoxed by the notion that we’d “suck” to not give a 2-weeks-pay bonus. Isn’t the larger point that paying a less-than-living wage implies suckitude?

No, I read it. I’m unconvinced. I don’t think preventable deaths anywhere in the world are morally unproblematic, and I do donate to organizations that seek to systemically improve living conditions for the poorest of the poor. However, I also don’t think that stiffing the waitress is anything other than a jerk move, and it is certainly not morally commendable. You don’t think the waitress has any moral right to a living wage; I think everyone has that right. You think it’s okay to shortchange her so that you can donate to charity. I don’t.

I would note that in most of Europe, the service charge of 15-20% is included in the menu price–a tip is generally small, and not the major source of income for waitstaff.

This is not the case in the US.

“If you explain to me how you in your life has found reliable ways to do more to aid those worst off then I’ll try to learn from your example.”

Actio I am not the one lecturing other people online about the immorality of tipping. If you can afford to eat out you can afford to tip.

/Obviously this does not apply to the same degree in Europe where, as it has been pointed out, waiters are usually paid at a much higher rate.

Actio,
I find your argument surprisingly persuasive. I am not convinced but I’ve increased the probability I assign to 1st world not-tipping being moral.

Still, the tipping norm in restaurants is sufficiently pervasive that it almost constitutes an implied contract. That is, because I know that tipping is expected, it is part of the price even if it is not legally enforceable. Even though I could avoid paying, that doesn’t create a moral right to do so. I guess the way I am envisioning it is that if I could pay whatever I wanted in a restaurant but there was a well understood price I should pay, I’d pay it or not eat there.

There are many museums in the USA where you can pay what you like but there is a recommended donation. I pay the recommended price there too.

I’m not sure why, but I re-read much of this thread again, and I realized that:
1) much of my comment re-treaded through territory that actio had already covered (sorry about that).
2) MPAVictoria and Katya are puzzlingly hostile to actio, given the efforts actio made from early on to be non-lecturing (or at least non-judgmental) and even equivocating to some extent.
3) On the whole I find myself agreeing with OneEye, who credits the logic and righteousness of actio’s stance but articulates the most troubling aspect for me: once you’ve enlisted the service of the person expecting a tip you have made the most relevant moral decision in the scenario. I think Walt’s point earlier on is also logical: if non-payment of a customary tip is moral, isn’t stealing?
4) Nonetheless, the common complaint voiced here that waitstaff rely on tips for their livelihood is truly off the mark for the actios out there.
5) Overall a lot of people (myself included) are not playing on the field actio is (and maybe we should be). In the meantime it seems like tipping (or generosity in general) has to be some kind of moral virtue in the breach, no?

“2) MPAVictoria and Katya are puzzlingly hostile to actio,”

I take it you have never worked in a restaurant and depended on tips to make your rent? If you had you might understand the hostility towards someone trying to moralize with your livelihood.