[shados]

Wasn't what they were doing exactly the same mechanics as how typical tipped employee salary work, just at a different threshold?

Eg, in Mass, it looks like tipped employee minimum wage is 4.35, and tipped wage plus tip must be $12/hour. If the employee doesn't get any tip, the employer has to foot the difference.

So for all practical purpose, all the tips you give up to $12/hour are simply saving the employer money but don't change anything for the employee unless they do dodgy shit like not declaring cash tips.

Yeah, the whole system is bullshit which is why we should abolish tips altogether in favor of proper minimum wages (or higher for professions that usually get a lot from tips like bartenders)

[eridius]

Restaurants have to make up the difference for the whole pay period, not per-order, which means any individual tip goes 100% to the waiter. And restaurants expect that they don't have to make up the difference because waiter pay after tips is expected to exceed minimum wage. So the rule where the restaurant has to make up the difference is just the loophole that lets them get away with paying less than minimum wage in the first place.

Whereas DoorDash's model was set such that you had to tip over $10 for the dasher to see a single cent of it. This meant that nearly all tips went to DoorDash instead of to the dasher, because I have to imagine most orders don't have a >$10 tip on them. And this was calculated per-order instead of per pay period, which mean that, as a customer, your individual tip was going to the company instead of to the dasher.

[randallsquared]

> Restaurants have to make up the difference for the whole pay period, not per-order, which means any individual tip goes 100% to the waiter.

That is definitely not a useful place to use "which means".

[lonelappde]

In other words, customers noticed that a fair tip is more than they want to pay, so they got mad at DoorDash instead of paying their servant.

[siphon22]

And you are here, blaming the customers instead of DoorDash for taking money intended for the dashers?? Might as well go pick up the thing myself, or hell, just make my own food at that point, then neither you or the company will receive even a cent. It is disingenuous to characterize the customers here as masters and the dashers as servants. You provide a service of your own will and customers pay for it.

[eridius]

Tipping over $10 on a $20 order is not anybody's idea of a "fair tip".

[rtkwe]

Doordash iirc took the tips out of /every/ transaction not just the initial 5-10 dollars per hour (the difference between minimum wage and tipped minimum wage) like restaurants do so they were profiting from every tip. Restaurants only really get the benefit of the first couple tips given each hour and depending on the restaurant cost, the ratio of servers to tables and the turnover rate the first 2-4 tips of every hour likely cover the difference the restaurant is making with anything else going to the customer (I'd love to have some actual numbers here from servers but the math makes sense). So in general unless it's a slow time your tip probably actually goes to the serving staff instead of just benefiting the restaurant.

[axaxs]

Exactly. I didn't really understand the outcry, unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works. It's exactly the same model that restaurants use.

[shados]

> unless people in the USA just don't understand fully how tipping works.

Every "outrage" in the US consists mostly of shit people don't understand. That doesn't mean they're wrong about the cause, but you can be "right" for the "wrong reason".

In this case, yes, DoorDash employees are getting screwed. At the -same time-, DoorDash is doing nothing weird or outside of the norm.

The solution is wrong. People are trying to get 1-2 companies to make tipping a little less bullshit, when its tipping itself, across the entire country, that is broken.

[rtkwe]

One important distinction to me is DoorDash took benefit from every single tip while restaurants only benefit on the first couple tips until the difference between minimum wage and the tipped minimum wage is negated. After that all tip benefits go directly to the person being tipped where people expect it to go. Generally, depending on a lot of variables, after the first handful (I’m ball parking 2-4) of tips that gap should be covered and most times servers should see way more than that in tips.

[snowwrestler]

I think it's more likely that you don't know how tipping works in restaurants. While the restaurant can take tipping in account when setting their hourly wage, they cannot garnish, in real time, larger or smaller portions of each individual tip a waiter earns on each ticket.

[axaxs]

That's just a difference in model, and "gig economy" vs traditional. I'm not saying they work identically - they can't. But it obviously didn't start out that way with restaurants, and I doubt it will with DoorDash for long. Once they have an idea of average tips in markets, expect them to set a flat per delivery rate that is much lower, and let tips be tips.

[lonelappde]

Yes, it's the same. Ultimately the worker has two paymasters who also pay each other and money is fungible. The faux moralism is just the two parties -- corporate, and customer, jockeying for how to split the money the worker earns. And the poor worker doesn't even get a voice.