I had a service industry job in texas that payed me around 2.50 an hour (iirc) and as long as I made enough in tips to cover minimum wage they didn't have to pay actual minimum wage.
It's immoral as fuck to steal tips. I don't care if it's legal. If I'm a customer tipping the person a certain amount I want to make sure it's actually helping that person and not just lining the pockets of their employer, that's absurd.
That might be legal in Texas, but in Washington it's explicitly illegal. In the state, tips are completely irrelevant to base pay, all employees must get paid at least minimum wage as base pay.
Instacart is going to get fucked very quickly by the Washington AG. This is as bad as Walmart not paying employees for overtime.
Especially because Washington's Attorney General is particularly fond of jumping on cases like this, particularly worker rights. But he is also fond of keeping startups in line. So this is a double-whammy case for him.
This always seemed crazy to me. Basically the employer pays only a pittance and then stops paying until your tips exceed minimum wage. They're basically stealing the tips between $2.50 and whatever the minimum wage is in your area.
tipping encoded in to law in general seems crazy to me. many (most?) other countries don't have this ritual, and seem to do just fine. I've dined out in many other countries outside the US, and service is generally good regardless of whether tipping is involved/expected or not. And in the US, I don't feel my normal service is all that much better because someone is thinking I might tip an extra dollar or two on an $8 lunch.
I even feel it's the other way around, in other countries the tip is usually the change, like $8 meal, just leave a $10 bill and leave, staff is either happy or neutral, in the US if you don't leave enough you get nasty looks as you exit even if the service was unremarkable.
