Share and Share Alike
June 15, 2010
Contrary to popular belief, I hate being right. Since my outlook on life is hyper-realistic to the point of being constantly cynical, skeptical, and miserable … saying “I told you so” brings me no joy. If I were wrong a little more often, I have little doubt that I would be a happier person.
I rarely have this opportunity, however.
Take for example, tip stealing. When the Wynn began the practice of stealing dealer’s tokes some years ago, I was certain that it would only be a matter of time before other casinos followed suit.
Well, it looks like that day is nigh:
Italicized quotes in this article are from the Las Vegas Sun @ http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/14/daily-memo-gaming-caesars-looking-change-tips-wynn/ (NOT the Review Journal)
“… Caesars Palace — a property where union-represented dealers are at loggerheads with management about changes in benefits and working conditions they don’t like — recently adopted language in its contract with dealers that allows the casino to impose the same tip-sharing policy as Wynn.
We have always maintained that we had the authority to manage the tip pool,” even before Wynn enacted his plan, said Marybel Batjer, vice president of public policy and communications for Harrah’s. “When Wynn acted upon it, we had not even contemplated it.”
But the world has changed since 2006. The following year, dealers — angered by the tip policy and its reduction in their take-home pay — made Wynn the first major casino since 2001 to see a successful vote for union representation.
Inspired by their counterparts at Wynn, Caesars dealers, who also feared a redistribution of tips but were more concerned about other matters such as job security and benefits, voted for union representation in December 2007. In a memo to dealers days before the election, Harrah’s executive Tom Jenkin urged them to vote against the union, adding that “Wynn made a bad decision in sharing tokes (tips) with supervisors.”
“To be as clear as possible, your tokes are your tokes,” he wrote …”
Read that last line again. And again. And once more.
That, my friends, is what you call a “Las Vegas Promise”. I put more trust in my bowel movements than what I am told in this town.
Speaking as to his motivation:
“Wynn says the tips have motivated supervisors to provide better customer service to gamblers, making them deserving of tips that historically went to frontline workers in nonmanagement jobs. Dealers have disputed that, calling it Wynn’s way of avoiding paying managers higher salaries by taking the money out of the pockets of the frontline workers.”
Wait … what?
How have tips motivated supervisors to provide better customer service to gamblers?
Does this mean that every non-Wynn pit boss is currently providing shitty service to gamblers?
How is this lack of supervisor motivation manifested?
Seriously, I don’t know about the rest of you, but the pit bosses are rarely the source of my “service” in this town. Sometimes they are friendly, and sometimes they are downright adversarial. What is it, exactly, that Wynn is so convinced that his supervisors are not motivated to do? Is he afraid that they will let me say “fuck” without a reprimand unless they get a 15% pay increase? Is he afraid that they are going to cheat or overlook collusion? The case has simply never been made for tipping a pit boss other than “they just want the dealer’s money”.
Tip pooling is bad enough, and it’s a practice that I detest, but this addition is just a travesty.
Don’t these people realize that in order to motivate the pit bosses in this manner, it requires de-motivating the dealers. Personally I’d rather have a motivated dealer than a motivated pit boss.
Anyway, it appears that Caesars will also begin stealing its dealers’ tips at some point in the future, and of course, many more casinos will quickly follow suit until the practice is standard at all Vegas casinos.
Caesars Palace
Caesars Palace
Now, I get a lot, and I mean A LOT of flak for calling this practice tip stealing. People have been getting angry with me about the term since I started using it three years ago.
These people can get pissed until they are blue in the face, however, because I 100% stand by the term.
What Steve Wynn and the other casinos will be doing is absolutely theft.
If I walk up to you and hand you $10, and that ten dollars is completely voluntary, then it is a gift. Your employer has no claim to it.
“But Rex, waitresses have been sharing their tips with bus boys forever and dealers have been pooling their tips for years.”
I know, and I think it’s wrong.
If I wanted to tip the bus boy, I would hand the bus boy money. If I wanted to tip someone else’s dealer, I would walk over and tip them. The fact that a business does not pay its employees a living wage does not justify their robbing of Peter to pay Paul. If a business owner is outraged that their bus boys or shift managers make less money than do other employees … then it is up to the owner to pay those people more.
The fact that everyone steals from their employees does not make it right. ”Everyone does it” … doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s the refrain of the brainwashed masses who comfort themselves with the warm mental opiate that is acquiescence to the status-quo.
“Well Rex, when the employee is on the clock, whatever property they get during that time belongs to their boss.”
Bullshit.
We abolished slavery in this country. At least in theory.
You get paid to perform a task, not cede your personal property on demand.
If your kid is working at Burger King on her 16th birthday, and you decide to surprise her by driving the new car you bought her into the Burger King parking lot, the store manager is not entitled to any interest in the car whatsoever. They cannot take possession of it, or redistribute it in any way. If they did, it would be called “theft”. If the manager told your kid that he would fire her unless she handed over the keys to the car, this would be called “extortion”. Making either of the above scenarios a condition of employment is patently unconscionable.
Unfortunately, laws are applied unequally in this country. You can actually buy a license to steal here.
Not only will the courts look the other way, but so will the press.
In Las Vegas, our mainstream media insists on calling this particular brand of employee extortion “tip sharing”.
Steve Wynn could mercilessly club baby seals, and our local media would call it “Steve Wynn’s crusade to solve the crisis of seal overpopulation”. When you’re a member of the corporate media, you can’t bite the advertising hands that feed you. In this town, those hands belong to the casinos. Being intellectually dishonest is part of the job, and the working man/woman of Las Vegas is always going to be abused by our supposed 4th branch of government.
The rest of us, those who don’t have to eat the shit we are being shoveled by casino CEO’s, really need to get over these cutesy “sharing” labels when the practice is nothing more than extortion. The casinos are saying to dealers “gimme 15% of the gifts you receive, or you will be terminated, blackballed, and never work in this town again. You will lose your home, your kids will not be able to see a doctor, and you will starve.” Frankly, I do not know how anyone can call this “sharing” with a straight face.
In any event, I feel that the town is making another grave mistake.
I think the Wynn’s new “resort fee” is going to turn off a lot of visitors, and I think Harrah’s new tip stealing policy (assuming they implement it) will further diminish the morale of an already recession-worn group of dealers.
Whether you realize it or not, this will have an affect on all of us, visitor, local, and worker alike.
Once again, color me disappointed.
I watch with a heavy heart as the corporate plutocracy of Las Vegas continues to make greedy decisions which will eventually result in the further decline of a town which once held great promise.
Vegas baby.
Written by BigRedDogATL on June 15, 2010 at 4:28 am
As a customer I don’t like the fact that if I tip a dealer, the dealer doesn’t get 100% of the tip but has to share it with other dealers on their shift. The only place I feel tip sharing is valid is for dealers working a craps table. Then and only then should the tips be shared between the dealers of that individual craps table.
Written by Scooby on June 15, 2010 at 5:15 am
Rex,
On December 7th, 2006 you wrote a blog titled ‘Boycotting The Wynn’. In that blog you published, and I quote (NOT from the RJ)
…
“I used to be a semi-regular at the Wynn, but as of today, I will not be going back until the dealer tip issue is sorted out.”
“I am not a high-roller by any means, but I will personally boycott the Wynn. If everyone involved loses money, the policy will be retracted. It was bad enough that they made the dealers split the tips amongst each other … but now they have to split the tips with their bosses???”
Rex, what happened?
Written by joeschmeaux on June 15, 2010 at 5:23 am
It’s just another case of the rich stealing from the middle class. It’s the American way. If it isn’t tips, it’s pensions. When there’s not much left to steal, the revolution will begin.
harrah’s will try it at ceasars. If it works without too much of a backlash, they will do it at all their casinos, and the rest of las Vegas will follow.
The dealers would be wise to unionize, so non-harrah’s employees (who can’t be fired by harrah’s) can do informational pickets. I think that customers would be unhappy to find out that the house takes a portion of the tips they give the dealers. They would make their feelings known to management.
The frustrating thing about this is that if the customers punish the casinos by not playing, the dealers would suffer as well. However, it’s probably worth losing 100% for a short time, instead of 15% forever.
I’d love to be around to see caesars’ dealers walk off the job in solidarity! Then the bosses would have to earn their tips the old fashioned way — dealing!
Written by Hawaiianmark on June 15, 2010 at 8:28 am
Agree on most all – but the point of 10 bucks to X employee is only theirs – if they tip the busser/flak/dweeb/dealer/drug procurer…thats their kuleana (business)…
Written by Kenny on June 15, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Servers don’t share their tips with the bus boys and bartenders, they tip them for helping get their tables cleaned quicker and drinks made faster and better which leads to better tips for the server. If the dealers want to voluntarily tip the floor supervisor because they are contributing to better tips for the dealers then so be it, but being forced to is wrong. As a former server I never tipped the manager and the servers made more money from tips than the managers salary, but that was the job they chose.
Written by Gary on June 15, 2010 at 3:21 pm
It seems that everyone in Las Vegas gets a tip. I would argue with Wynn that if his supervisors are providing such great service, then they’ll be earning plenty of tips on their own. And, if he wants to encourage great service, get rid of tip pooling. It only encourages mediocrity.
Written by Dan on June 15, 2010 at 4:31 pm
I would argue that the waitress/bus boy being similar to the dealer/boss is false. Bus boys can very much have an impact on your dining experience and to simplify the tipping experience custom dictates that just the waitress or waiter is tipped and the buss boy gets a part of that tip. I have no problem with this. A pit boss, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to do with my gambling experience, except possibly negatively. I can’t, for the life of me, think of a single reason for giving a boss a part of a dealers tip. This is theft, plain and simply. F*ck you steve wynn and f*ck your comments about china being more stable than the USA. Go move your primary residence to Beijing then and get the hell off my soil.
Written by Ken on June 15, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Yet ANOTHER reason to gamble downtown!!
Written by mike_ch on June 15, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Take away sharing, and you’ll have a lot more people to tip. But I agree in theory.
The best solution would be for everyone to have a baseline livable wage so labour can’t make the argument that tips are.necessary to get by. But at the same time, the reason I don’t see “stealing” as a big deal was that the Wynn dealers were literally complaining about making $90,000-100,000 instead of their usual $110,000. In this town, that’s a sum to live like a king. So I cant feel too much sympathy, sorry.
Written by Arthur, Art Henderson on June 15, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I would argue that the waitress/bus boy being similar to the dealer/boss is false. Bus boys can very much have an impact on your dining experience and to simplify the tipping experience custom dictates that just the waitress or waiter is tipped and the buss boy gets a part of that tip. I have no problem with this. A pit boss, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to do with my gambling experience, except possibly negatively. I can’t, for the life of me, think of a single reason for giving a boss a part of a dealers tip. This is theft, plain and simply. F*ck you steve wynn and f*ck your comments about china being more stable than the USA. Go move your primary residence to Beijing then and get the hell off my soil.
+1
Written by Rex on June 15, 2010 at 7:58 pm
But at the same time, the reason I don’t see “stealing” as a big deal was that the Wynn dealers were literally complaining about making $90,000-100,000 instead of their usual $110,000. In this town, that’s a sum to live like a king. So I cant feel too much sympathy, sorry.
The Robin Hood mentality is populist, but I’m not sure that it has an ethical basis.
Is stealing a Mecedes somehow less wrong than stealing a 1974 Ford Pinto?
What is the cutoff wage that a person should be allowed to earn after which stealing from them is no longer wrong?
“Stealing is wrong, but those guys make $90,000, so fuck ‘em”
I hear what you’re saying, and it may be hard for “average people” to feel sympathy for guys making $100K, but remember, the guy stealing that money makes billions of dollars.
It should be at least 1,000 times harder to sympathize with him.
Written by George on June 15, 2010 at 9:58 pm
You defend your version of “stealing” as wrong by using analogies of real stealing.
When I tip a waitress I want her to share with the busboy.
When I tip a dealer I have no problem with him or her being required to share her tips.
There are actually some examples of resorts that ban tipping completely. What if all gambling resorts did that? Since there would be no tips to steal then no stealing would occur. Given that alternative I would think that dealers would happily rather share their tips.
Written by wrxrob on June 16, 2010 at 4:32 am
even Delaware’s table games set the policy for “tip sharing” from the get-go (opened up this month). A few poker dealers walked off the job on the first day, because of it.
Written by d3wayne on June 16, 2010 at 4:53 am
“Wynn dealers were literally complaining about making $90,000-100,000 instead of their usual $110,000. In this town, that’s a sum to live like a king. So I cant feel too much sympathy, sorry.”
The dealers at the Wynn worked very hard to get to where they are. There are no break in dealers at the Wynn. They put there time in working at the grind joints. So they deserve to make the amount of money they make.
But i think the main point is this. If Wynn can steal a portion of dealers tips. What is to stop the Owners of other casinos from stealing tips from their dealers. Say , Sahara. The dealers at Sahara make considerably less than the dealers at Wynn. But they work just as hard for their tips.
Stealing is stealing . no matter how much money the person makes. When i tip a dealer. I am tipping the dealer only. not the suit behind him.
How would you like it if your boss came and told you he was going to take a portion of your salary and give it to your managers?
Written by mike_ch on June 16, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Look, guys, you’re either for pooling or you aren’t.
Rex isn’t, and that’s fine. He’s consistent with his opinion, and that’s all I ask for. He wants his tip to go exclusively to the person he tipped, and I understand that mentality.
But if you don’t mind tip pooling, I can’t really see anyone caring enough to care about this. Your tip is already being shared with people you’ve never met, including those who might provide bad service. It was inconsistent already, and I’d rather give money to a pit boss than the other dealer who gave me a cold shoulder all night.
And yeah, the fact that they make a princely sum makes me less sympathetic. Sorry to report that I also support higher rates of taxation on higher incomes. However, in this case, you’re still making as much as any front-line worker in town (except I guess the firefighters) and if this really helps keep the wheels turning and keeps it one of the highest-grossing casinos on the road, then it’s good for everyone.
Initially I thought this was a way for Wynn to simply avoid getting pit bosses a raise, but later I realized the hotels draw a lot of whales who can trip extremely generously, it’s possible Wynn might have to double their incomes just to make them look the same.
Written by tunadz on June 17, 2010 at 1:10 am
Mike_ch, if you see this as an extension of tip-pooling, then you obviously don’t understand the basic labor-management dynamic which caused the birth of unions. Supervisors are Management, and they have agreed to conduct themselves in accordance with the wishes of the Owners in exchange for whatever the Owners wish to give to them. The dealers are Labor, which has yet to make the final concession in writing. Labor can conduct themselves in accordance with the wishes of the Owners in order to keep their jobs, or they can band together and demand of the Owners, “Treat us in this way or fire us all.”
Tipping is a revenue stream for labor, and that revenue should increase based on the service that they provide to the customer. Labor understands this and works harder. Tip pooling among Labor has a less direct effect, but Labor still understands, “If we all work harder for the customer, we all get paid better.” Tip stealing is the Owner telling the Manager, “We know that you want to be paid more than the people you supervise, but we don’t want to pay it. We will take some of their money and give it to you, and you will still do only what we tell you to do and never anything else.”
The tip that you give will not change Management’s behavior in the slightest, ever. You gave that tip to Labor and saw an immediate result. I usually tip dealers for paying closer attention to my betting than I am. I have never tipped a pit boss for his constant, unwelcome advice on how I throw the dice. Now my tip goes to reinforce both behaviors?
Written by Ron from MI on June 17, 2010 at 4:06 pm
I’m not a real over-the-top supporter of the unions (except their right to exist and to defend their own right for respect and fairness,) but what leads to employees to union representation is when the company overstepped its bounds and employees are more than just upset.
It’s easy to quit and I respect those who do; but some can’t for many reasons. Others rightfully will fight for their right for fairness: I respect those people too.
Tip pooling without a any mutual agreement with any casino employees will lead to trouble or the casino’s demise. And that includes a high-end casino like the Wynn Resort, or even Caesars.
Steve just doesn’t need the high-end to support him or his company. He also wants the average folks to come in as well. The tip pool issue will desert him and his company slowly, if not quickly. And if there’s a major strike, it’s ugly.
As I believe: “You can’t just make your money on just First Class seating; you make most of your money on coach.”
Doing the opposite will lead to consequences.
Period.