fizzywm

Which is no different than servers in a land based restaurant in the US. But this argument doesn’t fly there and everyone knows it. I’d love to see anyone on your side admit they stiff waiters since it is the restaurant’s job to pay them fairly. I would applaud the consistency.

And you once again gloss over the crux of my replies to you which were always about the fact that the guaranteed minimum salary is paltry pay in comparison to the tips earned.

Again you dishonestly use the word ALL as though anyone here is saying that ALL staff should receive gratuities. Talk about word games. I haven’t seen anyone saying the captains, entertainers, insert any of 100 other positions should receive gratuities. I think most everyone here is in agreement that it would be better if the cruise line paid non customer facing staff directly. It doesn’t change the fact that removing auto grats removes pay certain parts of the crew count on.

They are clearly talking about the behind the scenes people who already receive tips. That is far from “the salary of all on board”. the auto gratuities are part of their pay the same way restaurant employees count on tips as part of their pay. They shouldn’t be, but they are.

This is what I mean by bad faith. I haven’t seen anyone here saying anyone should be concerned with the salary of every single staff member on board. It seems like everyone has put that on the cruise line and rightly so. Acknowledging that removing auto gratuities is removing pay for some positions is simply acknowledging the reality of the current system. Same with pointing out that the base salary for some positions is not very competitive without these tips. I keep getting this line about shaming in response to my posts. I don’t understand who that’s directed to. I believe calling people foolish for not removing gratuities is shaming though. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it either way.

Yes, of course. As I said before, when people remove the auto gratuities they are taking away pay from these positions. Do you think restaurant servers in the US count on every single person tipping as a given? No, but they are expecting enough tips to make the pay competitive–otherwise they wouldn't be waiting tables to make less money than they make at Walmart. It is the same situation with the cruise ships. Clearly the minimum guaranteed salary is not where the bulk of this money comes from. I just saw a post in another thread from a former RCCL worker who said when the ships are drydocked, staff are making "maybe a quarter of their usual take home pay" due to no passengers on board meaning no tipping. That further proves my point. They are expecting, with good reason, a much higher amount, even if they aren't counting on it as a given or expecting exactly the same amount every week. I think they all know from day 1 some people remove their tips but most don't. I don't know how many times I can restate this or why it is being read in bad faith.

So then you agree with my original point all along which was that tips are clearly a factor for these employees, not just the minimum pay, since the majority of passengers are still tipping.

Whether you choose to worry about it is up to you. But the fact remains you are lowering their pay by removing gratuities. That's just how it has worked ever since those positions were included in auto grats. And since the majority of passengers do tip them, that extra pay is clearly factored into their calculations when they sign on to a contract – just as servers in a restaurant don't sign on for their state's minimum wage but for the tipped amount. Yes I was referring to US minimum wage. In restaurants here most servers start below the standard state minimum wage, as low as $2-3 per hour. After tips they are guaranteed to make at least state minimum wage which can be as low as $8 per hour. If they don't make much in tips the employer covers the difference between the $2-3 and the $8. Most servers would not work if they were only going to make $8 per hour, analogous to the minimum contract rate for tipped cruise employees. And yes you cannot opt out of gratuities on the website at booking time. You can opt to prepay gratuities at the time of booking, but if you don't, they are applied to your daily charges on board which you will pay at the end. To opt out of gratuities entirely you have to visit guest services on board. The total gratuities may or may not be factored into the final price you see online depending on the law in Australia (I am not familiar). For us in the US, if you don't prepay when booking, there is still a notice that gratuities will be charged to your onboard account. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/aus/en/faq/questions/onboard-service-gratuity-expense

Sometimes the dishwashers don't get tipped out (it depends). If they aren't then they are certainly paid higher than servers who rely on tips. None of this changes my point that people who sign on to tipped positions don't do it for the guaranteed base pay. They rely on tips to make competitive wages.

Since you stand behind your statement, I'll move on assuming you don't tip land based restaurant servers either, unless they really wow you. After all, they shouldn't sign on to make minimum wage and expect more than that.

Regardless, you are ultimately tipping employees you don't see either way. Either way they choose these jobs expecting (not "hoping") to make a fairly significant chunk of their money from tips. The minimum salary is not competitive in either scenario until tips are factored in. Like it or not, and I don't like it either. And I'm excepting the rare cases of restaurants in the US that have opted out of tipping and either make it up with higher menu prices or a service charge that actually goes to employees, like how some cruise lines include gratuities in the fare.

In your post I originally quoted you said: "The crew signed a contract for a guaranteed minimum. If they weren’t happy with that sum, they should not have signed the contract. No one should sign a contract “hoping” for discretionary income." My point since the beginning is that they clearly sign on expecting to make a good deal more than the guaranteed minimum. The minimum itself is not necessarily competitive for a job requiring working long shifts for 7 days a week, 6 month contracts overseas, away from families and sleeping in a small windowless room. Good for you that you tip your steward. But why do you tip them if you think the guaranteed minimum is enough?

It might not be going where it should, so why pay it at all? Is that your argument here? And does the same argument apply if you tip on a credit card statement at a land-based restaurant? We can't be sure where that is going either. Does that stop you from tipping when you eat out?

Yes, like server jobs in restaurants can be competitive once the tips are factored in. I'll give an example: The basic wage per ILO is $653 per month. Maybe that is competitive in the Philippines per the post earlier in this thread. Most of my room stewards on past cruises were Indonesian. The median salary in Indonesia is around $669/mo according to many sources including this one: https://www.salaryexplorer.com/average-salary-wage-comparison-indonesia-c101 Do you really think that's competitive for someone working overseas 7 days a week for 6 months? Of course it's not. The tips are what make the job pay competitively just like restaurant pay in the US.

Society and culture including employers, and in this case Royal Caribbean by necessitating opting out of gratuities. They could bundle it in and pay more competitively like other cruise lines, instead they go with the tipping culture. Like I said, I'm not against that changing, but me removing my auto grats isn't going to make the difference except to reduce someone's pay.

The same way servers and dishwashers in US land-based restaurants make a guaranteed wage that isn't very competitive until tips or tip share is added in. People don't work in these positions "hoping" for extra money, they work with an expectation of an average salary that includes some level of tips on top of the guarantee.

A distinction without a difference when we are talking about full time employees in tipped positions.

I do tip on top of the auto gratuities depending on the situation. The head waiter on my last cruise took great care of me so I gave him extra. I usually give the housekeepers at least a few extra dollars per day the same way I do at land-based hotels. Of course I don't think you stiffed your waiter at Izumi by paying him the 18% included. My post was mostly in reference to the comments in this thread about removing the auto grats because of the guaranteed salary. That ends up removing pay from back of house positions that expect some of their pay to come from tips. The same way not tipping a server in a US land-based restaurant screws the server and the back of house out of expected pay. They did not sign on to work expecting the guaranteed amount of as low as ~$8 per hour depending on the state. That's exactly what minimum wage is. No one is working at a US land-based restaurant expecting to only make the minimum wage. They know a big part of the money comes from tips. Even dishwashers and cooks that make a few bucks more than servers would probably not be signing on without tip share. Otherwise why would restaurants be offering tip share?

I don't really get the argument I've seen a few times in this thread that tips shouldn't be paid prior to services rendered. You have to go out of your way to prepay gratuities by checking the box when you book or calling afterwards. Otherwise they are billed at the end of your cruise because they are added to the onboard charges. It's not that I disagree with the concept of not paying ahead, but if you don't want to pre-pay, then it's easy not to. I also don't get the argument that people shouldn't be paying for back of house positions. Land based restaurants also include a tip out to positions like the dishwasher, bus boys, etc. I have to wonder why people feel it's different on a ship. Do you apply this same logic to land-based restaurants and other tipped jobs on land? Nobody would be signing up to wait tables for the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour or the state minimum wages which can be as low as $8.75. They do it because tips make up the difference. It's not about "hoping" but about a reasonable expectation and indeed often what is advertised as the average pay for those positions. Likewise, the base/guaranteed pay on cruise ships is not what gets the employees to sign on to multiple contracts. SHOULD it be this way? No, I don't think so, and I support the idea of the tips being built into the fare price just like how some restaurants are now opting out of the tip system and paying their employees a decent hourly rate and covering healthcare etc. But until things change, let's be realistic: removing tips isn't going to hurt the employers, just the employees. Wouldn't it be better to suggest these changes to Royal Caribbean, or instead choose to cruise with a line where gratuities are built in to the fare? I can only speak for myself and say for me those lines are unaffordable even factoring in the additional cost of the auto grats + cash tips on RCCL. I can respect those in this thread that still pay the amount of the auto grats in cash instead, but that's still taking away pay from those they can't tip in cash in the "other" positions–just like you would if you stiffed your server in a land based restaurant.