McDonald’s is insisting that every restaurant—especially fast food restaurants—should be required to do away with tip-based wages and pay servers at least the Federal-level minimum wage. There are a couple of major disingenuosities in the surrounding argument.

McDonald’s Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski:

Right now, there’s an uneven playing field,

because casual-dining restaurants, bars, and other establishments to pay below the typical minimum wage to tip-earning workers. If he thinks so, he should push for getting his restaurant able to similarly pay his workers rather than demanding that others kowtow to his business model.

Kempczinski went on:

If you are a restaurant that allows tips or has tips as part of your equation, you’re essentially getting the customer to pay for your labor[.]

This is an especially blatant bit of disingenuousness. The customer already is paying for the restaurant’s labor. The customer also is paying for the restaurant’s cooking, food and food preparation inputs, rent, management salaries, every cost the restaurant incurs. Those costs are included in the prices the restaurant puts on its menu. Tipping is just a customer-facing line item on the bill.

This is nothing but a regulated business manager venally and self-servingly trying to capture the regulators and impose added costs on his smaller and weaker competitors.