Tipping is also for cooking

The evening at the restaurant was pleasant. The food was good. The service was friendly and courteous. A tip of 15% is therefore added.

Surprisingly, in many restaurants, there is only one person who benefits: the server.

The cook won’t see a penny of your tip. Neither does the person who cleans the tables and fills your water glass. And we’re not even talking about the divers.

It is unfair.

Since 2002, tip employees (translation: waiters and waitresses in restaurants) can share their tips with other workers in the establishment by means of a tipping agreement. The majority of tip employees must agree.

The Association des restaurateurs du Québec is asking to modify the Labor Standards Act to allow the employer to impose a tipping agreement in his establishment.

This demand from restaurants is legitimate. Provided that it is well framed.

Why is this a good idea? Because the vast majority of customers pay a tip not only for the service, but also for the quality of the meal — which is the fruit of the work of the employees behind the counter.

It’s time to better redistribute tips, a major source of income for restaurant employees.

Over the past decade, the wage gap between waiters and other restaurant workers has grown, primarily due to rising tips. In 2012, a waiter made 1.5 times the hourly wage of a specialist cook. In 2021, this ratio has increased to 1.9 times.

In 2021, a server earned an average of $35.92 per hour in a restaurant. About two-thirds (64%) of his earnings are tips. For his part, a specialist cook earned an average of $19.40 per hour, a chef $23.14. Cooks and chefs do not receive tips, unless the servers have decided to share. In restaurants where there is a convention, the servers generally share between 5% and 25% of the tips.

A committee of representatives from employers, unions and the Au bas de l’échaille organization is to submit its recommendations to the government this fall on the issue of tip sharing. The CSN and the FTQ are not in favor of the restaurant proposal. Instead, they suggest that employers raise the salaries of their cooks (an increase that will inevitably end up on your plate, when inflation is at 8.0% in Quebec). So don’t expect unanimous recommendations…

Still, it’s time to allow employers to impose a tip-sharing arrangement. Provided that this new power granted to the employer is very well framed. Above all, we do not want employers to take advantage of this to help themselves to the very profitable pot of tips.

Restaurant employers say they want to reduce, not eliminate, the pay gap between servers and other employees. Servers would remain the highest paid employees.

There is a way to arrive at a fair solution for all. A solution that could look like this:

1. Allow restaurants to impose sharing of up to 15% of tips. It would be optional. (Even by splitting 15% of their tips, servers would still be by far the highest paid employees in a restaurant.)
2. Any sharing of more than 15% of tips would require the agreement of the majority of tip employees under an agreement (ie the current regime).
3. Restaurants cannot receive a penny from tips. It is an essential condition.
4. Chef owners would not be entitled to tip sharing.

If Quebec decides to act, it will have to do it with tact, in order to maintain the fragile economic balance in the restaurant industry.. And respecting an essential basic principle: 100% of tips must continue to go to employees.