Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:59 on 2024-09-15 Permalink Reply  

• Ephraim 10:17 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  Quebec is also the only province that has a tipped wage. Maybe it’s just time to end all tipping and end this nonsense. Literally, outlaw it. Do we need to make employees into dancing bears for a few extra bucks?

• Mozai 10:40 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  If there’s a law, would that mean payment-card readers will have to make separate software for Quebec that does not interrupt the customer to ask for 20-25-30% tip?

• DeWolf 11:33 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  @Mozai Based on the news coverage it would simply require the preset % options to be based on the price before tax, not after tax. And it would also require the lowest percentage to be displayed at the top of the list. No need for new software, just a change of settings.

  Incidentally I’ve never seen a place in Montreal with a 20-25-30 option. I’ve only seen that in the US and Toronto. Most places here are 15-18-20, although there are a lot of counter service places like cafés that have 10-15-20.

  I’m with Ephraim though. If the CAQ really cared about this, they’d abolish the tipped minimum wage and raise the overall minimum wage. Tipping isn’t illegal in Australia, but it’s purely discretionary as their minimum wage is equivalent to $22 CAD.

  There’s a cultural issue in the rest of North America that makes it very hard to get rid of tipping. Even in parts of the US where the tipped minimum wage has been abolished, there’s an expectation that you’ll still tip 20% – even at places that already add a service charge to the bill.

  But Quebec is removed enough from anglo North America that we could probably get away with a wholesale shift in culture, as long as workers are getting paid fairly. But the CAQ isn’t interested in workers, they’re interested in populist showmanship, which is this bill appears to benefit consumers (though the benefit is marginal) while doing absolutely nothing for workers.

• MarcG 12:21 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  When I visited Scotland, where tipping isn’t a thing, I found it very difficult to not tip because it’s so ingrained into my moral sense. An Aussie waited nearly slugged me for asking if I should leave a tip because he found it insulting – “we get paid a proper wage”. I think that it would take some time to remove the feeling that Not Tipping = Stealing from our hearts but it could be done.

• jeather 13:21 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  I often see 18/20/25 as an option, but I have also seen 15/18/20 and 15/20/25. I’ve never seen 10/15/20 but I guess I go to the wrong cafes. I’ve always seen them in ascending order.

• bob 13:25 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  In then end, I will spend my money how I damn well please, and there is no law that will prevent me from giving servers as much money as I want to give them. If I want to make up for the government and restaurant industry’s selfish greed, that’s my business. If you disagree, you cans spend the money you save from keeping restaurant staff impoverished on Ayn Rand novels.

  It is one thing to set the minimum wage for servers at $3/hr less than the actual minimum wage, but it takes a whole other kind of misanthrope to then deny them a means of making up for it. And the CAQ is not going to raise the minimum wage to anything near what would make up for the loss of tips. Restaurants are generally among the worst employers, and restaurant and bar work is about as precarious as it gets.

  MarcG – It’s odd that I have heard that same anecdote more than once when this anti-tip thing comes up. The average wage for a server in Australia ia $29.78/hour. (https://au.indeed.com/career/server/salaries). That’s $27.30 CAD, which is $10.00 more per hour than the Canadian average. (https://ca.indeed.com/career/server/salaries). For a full time server that is a difference between $57k CAD per year, which is more than a living wage, and $36k CAD, which is not. Australia’s minimums also respect pay grades, and so rise with experience. You can see some other minimum wages for the restaurant industry here: https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/payguides/fairwork/ma000119/pdf

  This whole tip debate is just gross.

• jeather 14:03 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  My understanding — am I wrong? — is that jobs in cafes and counter service restaurants are not tipped positions, and get the regular minimum wage (or, theoretically, more). I swear I remembered one cafe where because of that, the “tip” line on the machine went to the owner or manager, which is legal.

  You can both support switching from a lower tipped minimum wage to a regular salaried job AND acknowledge that, until that happens, you are generally ethically obliged to tip. (Without the caveat I know someone will bring up some example where the server spit in their soup in front of them and blah blah.)

• Ian 16:13 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  You are correct, only those earning tip earner wages are supposed to get tipped. I’ve noticed a percentage for tips at some fast food places lately, like the Subway in Cavendish Mall where I bought my lunch today. Totally illegal.

  Also worth noting, tip-earners (i.e. those that get the special low minimum wage) are also charged a percentage of their sales as a tax collected each shift by the establishment. They are in effect double taxed. This only exists in Quebec. The law was changed from the intial version so that if you make less than 8% in tips (the minimum payable per shift) your employer has to pay the difference so you don’t walk away owing tips to the establishment as an employee. Even if you get a cut as a busser or dishwasher you have to declare tips.

  Worth noting, minimum mandatory gratuities (like on large parties for instance) are not considered as “tips” but as regular income so don’t need to be reported the same way.

  It’s pretty byzantine.

  Compare this to the US where both presidential candidates are campaigning on “no tax on tips” for tip-earning workers.

• DeWolf 16:43 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  The situation Ian describes is exactly why tipping culture is toxic. Workers should be getting a fair and transparent wage adjusted to inflation – basically the Australian system. As bob notes, servers there make as much or more than servers here, without the inherent risk of relying on tips for most of your income.

  Try to explain North American tipping culture to someone from Europe or Asia or Australia and you’ll see how they struggle to understand. Tips are officially and legally optional, but required by social convention – and everything is weird and ambiguous and shady and open to abuse. How can anyone justify that kind of situation?

• jeather 16:45 on 2024-09-16 Permalink

  I think — as I recall from the story — you’re allowed to be tipped as a different kind of employee, but unlike with a tipped employee, tips don’t HAVE to go to the people who got them.

  I don’t see where they are charged a percentage of sales as a tax each shift, just that they are allocated a certain minimum tip amount which they get taxed on like normal income.

  I don’t think “no tax on tip” is good policy, tbh.

• dwgs 09:35 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  I’m thinking cash is the way to go.

• Ephraim 10:06 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  If the bill before tax is $100, the 15% should say $15. If they calculate the 15% on the total, it comes out to $17.25. Instead they would need to show 15% but actually calculate 13.046%. I still pull out my calculator before tipping at the machines, if I’m tipping by CC.

  To be 100% honest, many hotels have to do this because of the 3.5% hotel tax and American software which “adds” taxes rather than multiplies taxes. So the GST comes out as 5.175% and QST as 10.342125% in the calculations, if the hotel tax is charged because taxes are added.

  A word of caution… when a place is QSR and the employees aren’t paid a tipped wage, the owner can legally keep the tips. Which is one more reason why you shouldn’t tip if it’s self service. Unless you ask or there is a clear indication that all tips are going to employees… there is no guarantee. One employee on Reddit mentioned it… https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/164lf2m/fyi_caf%C3%A9fastfood_workers_are_not_entitled_to_tips/

• Chris 11:28 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  I feel so detached from this discussion because I buy everything with cash. I do tipping math in my head (10% is just shifting the decimal, then half as much again to reach 15%). I was vaguely aware of stories about those payment terminals begging for higher tips but as I never use them, I’ve never felt this pressure.

• jeather 12:16 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  Ephraim! That’s the reference I was thinking of!

  I used to tip the total tax, rounded up.

• Ephraim 12:46 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  Personally, what I would like to see is a clear cut-off date. Let’s say as of 1 January 2026, tipping can no longer be solicited and businesses need to put up a sign that say “Dignity in Service – To ensure the dignity of employees, they are now fairly paid and are no longer tipped.”

  Because really, it’s a matter of dignity. No one should grovel for a standard of living. And at the same time clearly outlaw asking for a tip. It will stop all those people who stiff them on tips anyway. All the abuse. All the entitled people who think they can abuse employees. All the nonsense. And people can work the days that they want and not have to fight to work Friday and Saturday nights.

  And yes, restaurants will have higher prices. But they will be fair. And we won’t be nickeled and dimed all over the place for extra. The employees will get regular pay, full EI, full parental leave, etc. I mean, the habit of not declaring sounds nice, until you get closer to retirement and realize that it hurts you QPP payments. Especially those who haven’t saved in their TFSA and RRSP. And I’m starting to know more and more people who haven’t planned for retirement and are going to be forced to work those years.

• Joey 13:29 on 2024-09-17 Permalink

  I don’t see us ever abandoning tipping, unless the way we pay for things changes meaningfully (tap-to-pay has just made it easier to tip larger percentages on the total including tax). I could imagine a provincial law that establishes a service upcharge that restaurants must collect, with all the funds going into a giant provincial pot pays a dividend to workers (ok, this is hard to imagine working neatly) or more likely the amount being distributed within the restaurant and it all being declared on everyone’s tax return. This approach would allow for a an agreed-upon framework for tipping with a reasonable percentage. Will probably never happen.