Minimum wage for waiters

[JStrike]

Getting emotional about this isn't going to help. It doesn't really matter whether you agree or not with the minimum wage, that is the law. You don't like it:
Kill your business.
Replace your staff with robots.
Move your business to another country.

So that aside, you need to find a way to make your business model work within the confines of the law. That is your job as a business owner. If a price hike is the best way to ensure you comply with the law, then that has to be it.

You can choose to make this an advantage and use it to boost your business's ethos by stating to your customers that you pay your waiters a decent wage (which according to your first post is pretty good). If your customers are happy with that and even more happy about the service they receive, your waiters will get a tip regardless.

Your competitors have to play by the same rules as you do. If they don't, report them to the dept of labour.

This sums it up pretty well.

 

[Tomtomtom]

It seems to me that tip redistribution has been the most practical suggestion -- not changing tipping policy.

If you have other staff receiving above min wage, perhaps you can give them a paycut down to min wage, and make it up in tip redistribution that balances the effect of the waitstaff wage increase.

If you can't make it balance, then applying the law is going to create a loss, and you have to choose how to distribute that. Hopefully you have the resources to phase it in slowly, absorbing the impact yourself initially, before passing it on to customers and employees.

At the end of the day, customers and/or employees and/or you will have to pay.

 

[southafricanrob]

So that aside, you need to find a way to make your business model work within the confines of the law.

Understood - but my scenario above is exactly that. Its reworking the model / accounting system to satisfy the law. The point I was trying to make is that the end result is exactly the same for the waiters - exact same amount in their pockets. So does that mean I am still underpaying the waiters? If your answer is now no - then surely that means that they were not underpaid in the first place...?

 

[saturnz]

Understood - but my scenario above is exactly that. Its reworking the model / accounting system to satisfy the law. The point I was trying to make is that the end result is exactly the same for the waiters - exact same amount in their pockets. So does that mean I am still underpaying the waiters? If your answer is now no - then surely that means that they were not underpaid in the first place...?

so because a cow has four legs its a table?

the difference is certainty, customers look at the menu and don't have to add a tip %, waiters know what they will receive as an income

 

[konfab]

Understood - but my scenario above is exactly that. Its reworking the model / accounting system to satisfy the law and it does so. The point I was trying to make is that the end result is exactly the same for the waiters - exact same amount in their pockets.

It is exactly the same because you are obviously a fair employer and a decent person. Minimum wage isn't meant to target a business like yours where they end up taking home above minimum wage.

I agree, it is stupid and a whole amount of unnecessary paperwork. Your case in question proves exactly why minimum wage laws are stupid as they usually end up harming people who do the horrible thing of trying to run a business.

 

[rietrot]

Make up some stupid cost like table rental that you take from the waiters tips. Give it back to them so that they now receive a basic salary that is equal to minimum wage. Put it in their payslip to show that they now get minimum wage. Let them keep the rest of the tips they would normally keep.
This should be enough to bs your way around the unnecessary red tape and everyone will be happy