Carlos Rodríguez Braun comments on the Madrid Regional Government's campaign to encourage tipping and the reaction of the unions and the left to the campaign.
(Photo: elcato.org)
The Community of Madrid has launched a campaign to encourage tipping, #YoDejoPropina (#ILeaveTip), with the message that such contributions "make possible those little dreams of those who take care of us every day" and "make our lives a little easier and happier." As expected, the solemnly unwary took the bait.
Indeed, the unions and the left came out in force to protest against such an affront. CCOO Madrid tweeted: "It is rights, wages, and decent living conditions that make it possible to fulfill our dreams".
That was the general tone of the offended: everything was dignity, as if political and legislative imposition were their exclusive representation, and, on the other hand, incentives for a job well done were unworthy. To top it all, they are free payments, voluntarily decided by the people. That's as far as we could go. And there is still more: the biemenspensantes (goodthinkers) took their hands to their heads because tips may not be declared. Ayuso promotes black money! They repeated it on Twitter, where more than one lamented: let them spend my tax money on this. They don't want tips these aggrieved people want the state to take money from workers through taxes and contributions. That seems worthy to them.
I read Rebeca Carranco in El País, who picked up the discomfort of progressivism in the aviary network, with gems like: "I fought for a living wage and the abolition of tipping". And a very upset man said he felt "ashamed of the ad", and then clarified that he never leaves a tip, as if that dignified the workers, and the tip will degrade them.
The cataract of imprecations against Isabel Díaz Ayuso was endearing because it was clear that they came from an aversion to freedom. It is the freedom of workers that angers progressivism: freedom to make an effort and get a tip, and freedom not to declare it.
The hatred of freedom is made clear precisely by taking women workers into consideration because in the progressive protests they were conspicuously absent. In fact, it almost seemed as if women workers refused tips. Just in case this was not the case, the progressives, naturally, never ask them.
Let's see what is the next bait that Ayuso throws at them and that the progressives take to make even clearer their Olympian disdain for the working people.
This article was originally published in Spanish La Razón (España).
