workers rights Archives • Bitches Get Riches

I’m sometimes surprised about what people find controversial around here. Our articles about abortion and reproductive rights are met with pretty universal agreement. While one of the most controversial things we’ve ever written was about the American tipping system:

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford To Dine Out

You should read it. But if you don’t want to bother, here are the highlights:

Our tipping system is whack by design. Employers are allowed to pay servers below minimum wage with the expectation that customers will make up the difference in tips. This means tipping is not, as the word would suggest, a reward for good service. Rather, it is pretty fucking mandatory if you want to qualify as a Decent Human Being.
So if you don’t tip at all, your server is being criminally underpaid. This isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility. Which means diners should factor the cost of tipping into their budget when dining out since employers are passing off the cost of their payroll to the customer.
The solution is to automatically fold service charges into the bill, which more and more restaurants and bars are doing. But it’s by no means universal quite yet. So in the meantime your options are to cook at home or tip your server at least 20%.

The number of comments on that article that don’t simply complain about the necessity of tipping, but completely disregard the humanity of servers is staggering. The contempt and disrespect from these trolls is, uh… super gross! Here’s a sample:

Damn. I did not order a side of ableism with this comment. Please take it back.

It’s the day after Labor Day. So I’m spending this article on the dignity of labor: what it is, why it’s deserving of respect and fair compensation, and why disrespecting labor is a massive dick move.

“You know how we joke about our ‘brand promise’?” I say to Jess in our weekly meeting.

“You mean our guaranteed minimum of dick jokes? Naturally! Why?”

“I’m thinking of finally writing a real one.”

“Oh, like a sentence or two in the sidebar?”

I make a face. My coblogger regards me with the abrupt suspicion of a dog owner whose faithful friend is chewing on an item of unknown provenance. “How long is it?”

“Kinda long…” I concede, a bad dog chewing faster.

She sighs. “I look forward to reading it.” This is what she says when she’s resigned to receiving an eleventy-thousand-word shitstorm that defies editing for clarity and brevity, delivered the morning we’re supposed to publish. And like X, I’m gon’ to give it to her.

Lately my brain has been leaking big, scary thoughts about the nature of the work we do here. Conversations about AI, plagiarism, social media, and the value of creative labor swirl through my head. I try keeping these thoughts where they belong: in the shower. But sometimes they escape and bully their way to my word processor.

Today, I want to spell out the real Bitches Get Riches promise. To make specific promises, and to explain why they’re so important. Because I want you to know me—and because I want you to know what you can (and cannot) expect from “content creators” in this time so fraught with artifice and greed.

It’s a little different from our usual. Indulge me, and I’ll strive to reward you for your patience.