No, We Should Not be Expected to Tip

Capitalists Should Pay More, Not Workers

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

The other day when I ordered from Grubhub, a friend of mine who happened to be walking up the street as my food was being delivered asked me — in front of the delivery lady — “Is that Grubhub? Have you heard what they’re doing now?” I told him yes, and no, so he elaborated for me. “Now, customers who don’t tip are put in the back of the line.” The delivery lady said, “Mmmhmm, you better believe it” in a strongly approving manner.

I do not agree. In this post I would like to take a few of your minutes to explain why, despite being on the Classical Left and fully supportive of and sympathetic to the plight of working class people — particularly those stuck doing gig work like food delivery for the likes of Grubhub and DoorDash.

For starters, let me make it clear that I believe that employees of these food delivery services, much like those who work in restaurants where we are also expected to tip (at least in America; see below), should be paid considerably more by their capitalist employers. The serving of food and the disbursement of it is an important service provided by hard-working people, and they are routinely paid shit wages for it with a dearth of benefits.

The problem with the strong expectation of tipping is that it constitutes capitalists passing the buck for their miserliness onto other working class people who are already paying the proverbial arm and a leg for ordering their food and/or delivery services. Culinary costs are very high, whether purchased from a store for home preparation, from a restaurant, or via a food delivery service — the latter of whom often jack up the prices even further.

These capitalists who run Grubhub and DoorDash are making a fortune. Their drivers are not, granted, and they should be paid handsomely, as should waiters in restaurants. But a large proportion of the Grubhub and DoorDash customer base are likewise struggling workers who can barely afford those services, let alone the various extra fees and state taxes tacked onto it.

(And need I mention the downward spiral in the quality of food served by many popular and once-awesome franchises, which seems to occur in direct proportion to how much the [adjusted for inflation] prices have escalated over the past decade?)

Yet those of us who can barely afford that food, and likely already exhausted our weekend allotment of cash to buy it, are expected to pick up the slack by not only the capitalists who can actually afford to pay their valued drivers much more, but by the drivers themselves. And also by other working class folks, who take it upon themselves to shame those who do not tip heavily.

This is especially ridiculous considering that the drivers, often being struggling workers themselves, know all too well how jacked up these food prices are. When they deliver to my neighborhood, they can clearly see that the residents living there are not people of means. As do the other shaming workers who live in that area.

Now, let me pre-emptively address the following two rebuttals I’m likely to receive:

“Well, if you have that much trouble affording the food, don’t buy it!”

I’m sure the drivers of Grubhub would really benefit from that choice, huh? This is what happens when, like above, people make knee-jerk responses without thinking things through.

Or… “Well, learn how to cook then!”

See my previous response… I’m sure waitresses in local restaurants and drivers from Grubhub who depend on a steady stream of customers willing to buy food prepared for them would love seeing the companies that hire them lose all their business. And need I remind you that not everyone can cook, and may not have time to learn properly if they do not have an affinity for it already?

Finally, permit me to point out (as alluded to above) that in most of Europe, customers are not pressured into tipping. Why? Because waiters are typically paid a living wage there, meaning their employers pay them the extra money that in America is instead passed down on the often struggling working class customers. 

Wow, imagine that. I am not certain about any equivalents to Grubhub that may exist in Europe, but the same could be done for the drivers there as well.

As columnist Bob Brody noted in the above linked April 2023 article from Fortune:

Now I live in Italy year-round. And luckily enough, I appear to have left the U.S. just in time when it comes to the socioeconomic pressure to tip. Tips for both goods and services are requested and expected more frequently than ever before. The share of remote transactions that offered the availability of online tipping grew from 43.4% in February 2020 to 74.5% in February this year, according to Square.

Further, tips are getting bigger and bigger. The typical 10% tip of the 1950s swelled to 15% in the 1970s and 1980s and currently ranges from 15% to 25%. A Creditcards.com survey last year found the average consumer tipped 21% last year. Some dubbed this phenomenon “tipflation.”

Why aren’t the workers in America uniting together to demand far better wages and benefits to the hard-working food delivery people and servers from those who can actually afford it instead of shaming and pressuring often struggling fellow workers who can barely afford the skyrocketing costs of food to begin with to compensate for them? Where is the pressure on the capitalists to do right by them instead of on their fellow workers who already give money to the companies that pay them? 

Further, why not insist that employers stop spending huge amounts of surplus cash on stock buybacks instead of on the employees who do all the useful work? (The latter fact puts paid to the common claim by conservatives that these companies would “go broke” if they paid employees closer to what their labor is actually worth; the burgeoning businesses and their contrary pay model in Europe prove this to be false).

Both customers and employees contribute to the success of these companies, and neither of us should be taken to the proverbial bank for either our patronage or our valuable work.

My main point is this… working class customers should not be expected to compensate for the miserly shortcomings of capitalists to their employees. Waitresses and drivers for food delivery companies should be paid very well. And food should be affordable — if it’s to be commodified at all (but that is another topic I’ll tackle in the future).

Until we unite as a class to make these changes by demanding that the system be revamped, workers will continue to suffer while capitalists profit at our expense. And we will continue to feud with each other over these issues instead of banding together against the true exploiters in this economic system.

We should certainly try to help each other out whenever we can, of course, but those who cannot afford to do more than they already do should not be expected to do what those who can afford it refuse to do.