Restaurant staff unhappy despite tips law change one year on

Legal moves to impose a fair tips system for waiting staff have failed despite new laws, claims the Unite union.

Legal moves to impose a fair tips system for waiting staff have failed despite new laws, claims the Unite union.
Last year the Government closed a loophole in the minimum wage legisation which had allowed bosses to take the tips customer had left for staff.
But Unite has described the legislation as a ‘total failure’ by the hospitality sector to implement a fair tips system, and claims the situation has not improved for many waiters and waitresses despite the first anniversary of the change in the law.
Dave Turnbull, Unite officer, said: ”Unite has found that one year on from the campaign there are still too many employers who regard tips as a subsidy for low pay and who see the tips and service charge money left by customers as a pot of cash to which they are free to help themselves.
”Unite members working in restaurants, hotels and bars across the country have seen establishments increase the percentage of the service charge they deduct from their pay packets.
”Workers expected their employers to hear the demands of consumers last year to pass all the money they intended for staff to them – instead many businesses have chosen to continue business as usual and profit from the gratuity charges.
”The Government must now act to implement the review of the tips code that was committed to in order to hold this industry to account.  It has been a total failure.
”If the bosses do not do the right thing and pass the tips and service charge money to the waiters and waitresses then consumers will lose faith in this sector.”

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