TODAY IS the six-week anniversary of Occupy Philly's tent-pitch at Dilworth Plaza. Sadly, the movement, begun with such honor, has attracted denizens so weird, some like to smear the place with human excrement.
Can't you just hear their chant?
What do we want?
Poop on the walls!
When do we want it?
Now!
Clearly, Occupy Philly's public image needs a re-boot. So I have a suggestion, aimed at level-headed occupiers disgusted that their movement's medium has been hijacked by interlopers.
Why not attend today's City Council meeting and support Bill No. 110341, which will be voted upon? Doing so would do more than get you out of the cold for a while. It would also aim a laser on your Holy Trinity of foes:
Greedy banks, grabby bosses and exploited workers.
Also known as the Gratuity Protection Bill, the proposed law, crafted by Councilman Jim Kenney, forbids employers to use workers' tips to help pay the fees that banks charge for allowing credit-card use at business establishments.
The practice is more common than you'd think in the restaurant industry (although the bill also applies to taxi companies, salons and other places employing tip workers).
Say you plan to tip your server $10 on a $50 restaurant bill. If you use your credit card to pay the total, the bank issuing the credit card - say, Citibank - charges the restaurant a transaction fee.
Many restaurants actually pay a percentage of that fee with the tip that's included in the total payment. Not that you'd know it, since restaurants don't disclose that info.
Per transaction, the fees might be small. But over a shift, they can total $2 to $5, depending on whether the restaurant is down-home or upscale. Multiply that over months or years, and we're talking thousands in lost income for waiters and waitresses, for example.
That's quite a hit for those earning the state's minimum wage of $2.83 an hour for tip workers.
"I bet I've lost $10,000 in tips to credit-card fees," says "Zoe," a longtime restaurant employee. She asks not to be identified for fear of backlash at her job with Starr Restaurants, which owns 20 Philadelphia eateries. Its founder, Stephen Starr, opposes the bill (no one from the company returned a call for comment).
