The article, Tripping System Exacerbates Unfair Pay at Restaurants, by Kathleen Kingsbury is written about her perspective on employees that are being underpaid after working long hours. Kingsbury uses a story of an employee, statistic and diction to show how employees get unfair pay at restaurants for working long hours. Kingsbury states, “nationwide, an Aspen Institute study suggests that nearly 40 percent of restaurant workers earn at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, even with tips factored in.”(P. 12).Waitresses that often work at gritty bars and grills feel as if they have no choice but to flirt or laugh along with customers even if it's an insulting comment. The argument is about the unfair tipping system that is an unfair pay at restaurants. Therefore, Kingsbury first applies her rhetorical strategy of ethos to show the readers that other industries and states have changed the tipping system, offering a reason to push other states to do so as well. Kingsbury states, “Other than restaurants, few other industries let bosses rely mainly on customers' generosity to set employee wages” .She also mentions in that specific paragraph how it made sense to everyone at that time due to being tipped with cash., so they were able to keep that money with any other fees. However, with the
introduction of credit card payments, the amount of money received from a tip has decreased further, lessening the already poor pay that they received. Kingsbury more than likely used these lines in her beginning paragraphs in order to show the reader how the tipping system has failed and been bad, and but only worsened with time, hurting the waiters/waitresses further.