‘I put up with so much for so little’

In part three of this week’s Living Wage series, UniteLive spoke to a waitress who is barely scraping by, even as the London restaurant industry rakes in millions.

Elif Ekimci* is a waitress at a chain restaurant in central London. Ekimci has worked at the same restaurant for eight years, and has not once received a pay rise above the minimum wage.

“The employer pays you nothing, so you depend on tips to get by,” she says. “You don’t get the hours you need. Some days, if the weather is bad, no customers come in and you make nothing.

Ekimci explains that restaurants often charge their customers compulsory “service charges,” but in many cases, the restaurant pockets this money. She says that the term “service charge” leads customers to believe that they’re paying the staff a tip, when in fact, they aren’t.

“The service charge discourages customers from paying an extra tip,” she says. “When you depend on tips to make up for the fact that you earn nothing, this makes the job that much more difficult.”

“I know some days the restaurant will take in £40,000 or £50,000 in one day. I make around £60 in one day. It’s really frustrating when you know they can afford to pay us more.”

Ekimci doesn’t work set hours, so her days vary from one day to the next.

“Yesterday,” she explains, “I worked from 9 am to 11.30 pm with only a 30 minute break. I was constantly on my feet. It was exhausting.”

The restaurant where Ekimci works does not have air conditioning, which means in the summer, workers are constantly overheated running back and forth from the kitchen.

“The customers complain about the heat, too, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she says. “It’s not entirely their fault, but both the customers and the managers always get angry at us for things beyond our control. We are always being shouted at. We have to put up with so much and we earn so little.”

Ekimci said that if she earned the London Living Wageof ÂŁ8.80 an hour, it would make the stresses of her job much more bearable.

She dreams of being able to spend more time with friends, save money and not have to be constantly keeping track of her spending.

“Since my hours are so unpredictable and I work so much,” she says, “I can’t meet friends like everyone else. If someone has a Sunday barbeque, I can’t go because I’ll be given a shift in the last minute. I have no social life; you get very lonely.”

“I just want to live like a normal person,” Ekimci says. “I’m lucky I’m not married. If you have a family, as a waitress, you’ll never see them.”

*Name changed to protect identity