Restaurant service charges imposed in Taiwan do nothing to compensate those who actually provide the services. My girlfriend went back to waiting tables as she bridged between jobs, reminding me about just how unjust -- and probably illegal -- the system is here.
Almost every mid-to-high- end restaurant adds a service charge of around 10 percent to every bill, for anything from a simple drink to a three-course spread. However, restaurant staff never see a bit of this extra fee. On the average shift, most waiters easily sell food costing at least NT$10,000 and bringing in NT$1,000 in service charges, but they just receive an hourly salary of NT$90 to NT$110.
I believe that this is a very unfair system and that it is probably illegal. First, the 10 percent service charge merely provides a way to inflate prices in a clandestine way. With the service charge, the restaurant owner is really charging NT$220 for NT$200 beer and therefore engaging in false advertising.
Second, the people who provide the "service" in restaurants are not being rewarded by receiving the "charge."
Restaurants ostensibly impose service charges because coping with the needs of larger groups of diners is more difficult. Of course, this difficulty is felt most by the waiters, who should get most of the 10 percent -- and yet their salaries are roughly half of this amount.
Finally, many restaurant owners impose service charges as a way to reduce their tax bills by not declaring the service charges received as income. The result is that tax is often not paid on 10 percent of the restaurants' gross income.
However, it is unlikely that this system will be changed in the near future unless a candidate running for political office attempts to attract more votes by making the protection of restaurant workers part of his or her campaign platform.
This is why I would like to ask the readers of the Taipei Times who frequent restaurants that impose service charges to help give restaurant employees a salary that reflects their work.
One way of doing this would be to tell restaurant managers that you are not happy with the service charge system.
Another effective measure would be to ask to directly pay the service charge -- in cash -- to your server.
A final and more absolute measure would be to make your displeasure known to the management by refusing to pay a service charge at all.
It would not take too many months of such pressure before restaurant managers would respond to the boycott by beginning to treat servers more fairly.
Of course, the entire issue could be resolved if restaurant owners would simply guarantee salaries for servers and pay them bonuses based upon sales.
This would be a very fair system and implementing it would cause a great jump in service quality as the best workers migrate to the best working conditions.
As service quality increased, restaurants would see a proportional rise in customers, which would force other eateries to implement the change.
The bottom line is that good waiters would be better compensated -- in fact, they might actually be able to afford to buy a couple of beers or a meal in their restaurant after work.
Stewart Clarke
Shilin
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