Is there proof they are cutting wages? If not, this is just hyperbole to stir up anger and clicks.

The most annoying thing I have noticed recently is automatic tipping at fast food restaurants. There is a burger franchise near me that if you check out with a card you are automatically surcharged a 30% tip by default. You can choose to not approve it but is the default is to charge you the tip and you need to review four tip options on the POS screen before you find the tiny "no tip" options in the bottom corner.

No I am not paying a tip for $20 burger in a barely heated fast restaurant with no table service.

Another place doing this is subway. No I am not paying a tip to the "sandwich artist" for doing the same job as has been done for what 30 years with no automated tip extortion by default on the POS kiosk.

As a consumer these fast food tip beggings offend me.

The article is nonsense -- maybe not surprising, because the author is listening to lies:

> The CEO of HEI Hotels, which owns and manages more than 100 properties in the U.S. across Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, and others including the Westin Grand Central, The Gwen in Chicago, and Revere Hotel in Boston as well as Liberty Hotel Boston and Claremont Resort & Club in Berkeley, explained that,

> He was having a difficult time recruiting employees

> Because they were demanding to be paid more

> So he needed to encourage guests to pay them more via tipping

> If he raised wages, other hotels would match that – but doing a better job getting guests to pay the wages via tipping was a sustainable advantage.

The real reason is to dodge taxes. Wages from the employer are taxed more heavily than tips now (in the US):

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/treasury-irs-issue-guidance-lis...

To the extent that a "TIP" portion of customer payments goes "directly" (as far as the IRS knows) to the employee, Marriott can pay less and still retain the employee, whose take-home hasn't suffered.

This changes the competitive environment for hoteliers -- this sort of coercion of customers will become the norm. Completely predictable of course, to anyone who thought through the implications of "No taxes on TIPs".