> Do you know of any good ideas to actually make that shift away from tipping happen?
Change the law to make tipping a private transaction between the customer and the direct recipient, with no ability for an employer to be able to view or dip into it. Taxing it is no issue, but that should again be a private matter between wait staff and the IRS.
If a customer wants the kitchen staff (or others) to receive a tip, then this must explicitly and freely be stated. The default should be that the direct recipient of the tip pockets the money. Leaving cash on the table should by law imply that the customer is leaving the money for the private benefit of the staff who directly waited on that table only.
Minimum wage topups using tips, and similar, would then be (intentionally) impossible. Employers would have to pay minimum wage (in places where one is defined).
Tipping would remain, but at least things wouldn't be quite as extreme as they are today.
Of course this will never happen because restaurant owners have more political sway than wait staff.
In many states the tipped and non-tipped minimum wages are the same. Which is probably as it should be.
I know in some restaurant workplaces tips are pooled and shared among staff, and this doesn't seem unreasonable as everybody knows what they are getting into.
Change the law to make tipping a private transaction between the customer and the direct recipient, with no ability for an employer to be able to view or dip into it. Taxing it is no issue, but that should again be a private matter between wait staff and the IRS.
If a customer wants the kitchen staff (or others) to receive a tip, then this must explicitly and freely be stated. The default should be that the direct recipient of the tip pockets the money. Leaving cash on the table should by law imply that the customer is leaving the money for the private benefit of the staff who directly waited on that table only.
Minimum wage topups using tips, and similar, would then be (intentionally) impossible. Employers would have to pay minimum wage (in places where one is defined).
Tipping would remain, but at least things wouldn't be quite as extreme as they are today.
Of course this will never happen because restaurant owners have more political sway than wait staff.