Fair tips fight goes on

Unite staged a ‘Fair Tips’ protest on Friday (February 5) outside STK London – the American-style steakhouse inside the five star ME London Hotel over accusations that it is cheating staff out of their hard-earned tips in an alleged service charge scam.

Unite is alleging that the discretionary 15 per cent service charge, automatically added to customer bills, is being used to top up the salaries of four senior managers by as much as ÂŁ50,000 a year each.

The allegation comes as Unite launches a campaign against Melia Hotels International, the Spanish-based owners of the ME London Hotel in the Strand and the White House, Regents Park over its refusal to recognise the trade union Unite in breach of its own globally signed agreements.

Unite has accused the hotel’s management of keeping staff and customers alike in the dark over its refusal to provide details of the company tronc scheme -the system used to distribute tips and money from the service charge to employees –despite repeated requests.

“We think the public will be very interested to know why these four senior managers declared that they were earning the National Minimum Wage of just £6.50 an hour back in February 2015 – the same as waiters and bussers – when restaurant managers in London are believed to earn as much as £60,000 a year,” said Unite national officer Rhys McCarthy.

“Restaurants and bars were banned from using tips to top up staff wages to the legal national minimum back in 2009, but that clearly hasn’t stopped STK from finding a nifty loophole to subsidise managers’ wages above and beyond the national minimum wage,” he added.

“We believe that customers will be outraged to learn that money from the service charge which they have paid in good faith maybe being used as a monthly bonus to boost bosses’ wages by tens of thousands of pounds a year each, rather than going to waiting and kitchen staff.

“It is the ultimate kick in the teeth for customers and staff alike, if restaurants are allowed to dip into tips and the service charge without a shred of transparency of how the money is being used or who is benefiting from it,” McCarthy went on to say. “If managers are not prepared to reveal what portion of the service charge and tips they are pocketing, then they should leave them alone.

McCarthy called on the government to speed up its investigation into tipping abuse, which was launched in the wake of last summer’s tips scandal. The investigation, launched by business secretary Sajid Javid, has yet to deliver its final report.

“Melia Hotels has a global agreement respecting trade union rights and management at the ME London Hotel should be keeping up company standards and acting ethically, instead they have been acting despicably,” McCarthy added.

“The good news is that our union is growing, chefs and waiting staff are uniting to work out their own fair tipping allocation policy.”

After the protest on Friday, a general manager at Hotel Me said that they were in the process of reviewing their service charge policy.

Unite’s fair tips campaign has forced many restaurants to change their tipping policies – most notably Pizza Express over the summer, when the chain dropped its admin fee after sustained Unite protests and a publicity campaign.