Minimum Wage

4X4Dodger wrote:

Canadian Rainbirds wrote:
Hope I'm not breaking any rules here; This is a quote from a poster on Zihuatanejo.net

"As of today, the minimum wage rate for Zone A is MXP $70.10, for B MXP $66.45. At the current exchange rate, that's USD $4.76 and $4.51....PER DAY!
I think it is important for tourists coming from another country to know this and to keep it in mind especially when tipping, "haggling", etc.
We have always done our best to inform other gringos we bump into."

I am confused...what on earth does the legal minimum wage have to do with my tips or when negotiating for anything. If I am negotiating with a shop OWNER it is up to him to set his lowest price to be sure he can make a profit. And you can bet he/she does.

When I tip a waiter/waitress in a restaurant their wages dont come into the equation at all. The only real considerations are the service and the total bill...

Let me relate a short story about this subject: Having lived in Asia for the past 8 years and traveled and worked and done business overseas on every continent for more than 30 years I can say: dont judge by appearances.

When I needed rain gutters for my small hotel I went to a small dilapidated shop in town that specialized in metal gutters. The scraggily middle aged man who dealt with me came to my hotel on his beat up barely running moto (scooter) and took measurements and I paid him about 1/2 of the total with the other half due on delivery. Due to construction delays he had to wait to deliver the gutters longer than he wanted.

One rainy day just before a major holiday I notice a new Mercedes E430 drive into our parking lot...the gutter man got out and came to ask me to pay the balance! Of course I said NO the deal was he wait until they were delivered. About two weeks later he delivered and installed them and got paid. But he came on his scooter again.

When traveling in any country dont get involved in trying to right all the wrongs or "change" things. This is up to the people who live there not the visitors. Most of the time I have seen expats try to do this it has backfired with usually terrible unintended consequences.

Well, the minimum wage rate has a great deal to do with gratuities in many jurisdictions in both Canada and the United States. I do not know about Mexico. It is very common in both Canada and the US for the minimum wage for serving persons that serve alcohol to have a lower minimum wage than those that do NOT serve alcohol. The logic of the legislators, and I use that term very loosely, is that as the persons serving alcohol are more likely to receive gratuities and therefore, the minimum wage should be reduced to compensate for the gratuities. That, in my opinion qualifies as illogical, to say the very least. The effect is that the legislators have simply concluded that the owner of the establishment should participate in the gratuities received by the serving persons. I have read reports that some jurisdiction provide for an alcohol server minimum wage that is less than $5.00 per hour in both countries. As you may have concluded, the hospitality lobby is very strong and effective!
Anybody here currently or historically accustomed to working for $5.00 an hour??????????????????????? I very much doubt it.:E