We’ve been talking about it for decades, but perhaps the time has come to abolish tipping in Quebec.
Especially since a somewhat pernicious habit has established itself everywhere in the province’s businesses which consists of asking for a tip for tasks that do not deserve one.
A filter coffee, a take-out counter, an automatic terminal (!), everyone is now eligible for a small bonus paid by the consumer.
With digital payments growing rapidly, “suggested” percentages are becoming part of our habits.
In 2022, 10% of transactions in Canada were in cash, representing 1% of the total value of commerce… but two in three people (65%) say they would not have left a tip if the terminal payment had not offered the option.
It makes me want to get back to cash.
However, several studies demonstrate the perverse effects of the tipping culture, both on the employees themselves and on the relationship with customers.
Despite everything, we learned in recent days that the latest fashionable “innovation” consists of adding happy or angry emojis in order to encourage customers to give more.
This is psychological manipulation, nothing less.
- Listen to Francis Gosselin and Jean-François Baril discussing tipping on Sophie Durocher’s show via QUB :
Do no one a favor
Tipping was officially integrated into Quebec labor law in the 1930s, at the instigation of the hotel sector.
Adopted in 1937, the Reasonable Wages Act mainly advances two things:
- the tip belongs to the employee (and not the boss), but…
- the boss can pay the tipped employee less per hour to compensate.
There is therefore from the start this idea that the money paid as a bonus by the customer entitles the employee to lower remuneration, which suits… the bosses.
Nearly 100 years later, the same logic is still at work: tipping means recognizing that the employee is not paid well enough.
Researcher Ofer Azar has studied the issue for more than 20 years, and concludes that this practice “allows the client to show gratitude, empathy and compassion for low-income employees.”
In most countries, according to Azar, tipping is a palliative for poor working conditions.
Photo Martin Jolicoeur
Pay better to earn better
The main cause of rampant tipping is therefore a management problem.
Rather than paying people their fair value, we prefer to place the odiousness (and the guilt) on the customer.
What’s more, data shows that over the past 50 years, the overall compensation of tipped workers has increased less quickly than that of other employees.
We are therefore perpetuating an injustice that has nothing to do with the quality of the service or product sold. It is a system that we tolerate.
In the United States, the Center for American Progress even showed that states that abolished the tipped minimum wage experienced faster growth and more resilient economies over the past decade.
There is therefore, for Quebec collectively, for its workers and its bosses, a real advantage in eliminating this practice.
It won’t be easy right away, but everyone will win in the long run.