history of tipping in the usa

Working in a restaurant can feel like slavery sometimes. I think minimum wage should be minimum wage, no exceptions made for restaurants. As it stands now, people in the service industry get paid so little in wages that they don't even get a check because of the taxes being deducted from their base pay.

And they all do plenty of other work for the restaurant that isn't related to serving customers, like rolling silverware and cleaning the dining area and the coffee pots and tea urns and on and on. It's called "side work," and the restaurant requires them to get it done before they leave and after they take care of their last customer. They're supposed to be paid minimum wage for the time when they're doing the side work, but the managers often shave off those hours before they send the time sheets to payroll. Not all restaurants are like that, but it's very common in the industry. And they wonder why nobody wants to work for them. They have a lot of balls, I'll give them that.

It strikes me as backward, emphasizing the economic power that the customer has.