I find it curious that traditional tip earners argue that they should be paid with fewer tips and higher flat wages, but no one ever wants it the other way around.
No one says, "Pay me less but let me accept tips. I'll make more money 'cuz I'm such a hard worker." At least I've never heard of anyone stumping for that.
Isn't that basically people who pleaded to be put on mostly commission? I know people who work almost entirely on commission.
Commission is very different from tips. Commission is a percentage of the take; The more you sell, the more you earn. Tips are whatever amount the customer feels like paying. A tipped employee who handles a $1,000 sale has no guarantee that they will get a larger tip than they did for another sale of only $200; While the amount of a gratuity is often 'suggested' or 'recommended' to be a % of the tab, there is wide variation from these expectations.
A commission employee might get 10% of their sales. A tipped employee might
expect 15 or 20%, but they might
get 25%, or 100%, or nothing at all.
For every waiter who serves a $500 lunch to Bill Gates and gets a $1,000 tip, there are thousands who serve a $20 lunch to some asshole who tips with a bible tract, or just stiffs him altogether.
The whole concept is deeply flawed and demeaning to all involved. If paying staff decent hourly wages is such an awful idea (and I don't see how it is), then maybe commission is the way to go - eliminate the expectation of tipping entirely, and pay staff a fixed percentage of the sales they are involved in - adding this to the prices, if necessary.
If someone gives bad service, their 'penalty' should be a complaint to management (who can decide if any further action is needed), not the elimination of their income by some petty asshole customer who management would have told to go stick his groundless complaint.
If someone gives superb service, a small gratuity might be OK, but even then, it's better to let management know, so that the employee can be rewarded with pay rises, promotions, bonuses, etc.