{"id":5064,"date":"2015-08-03T15:16:14","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T14:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5064"},"modified":"2015-08-03T16:30:07","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T15:30:07","slug":"stop-pinching-our-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5064","title":{"rendered":"Stop pinching our tips"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pizza Express waiting staff are to stage a series of demonstrations outside selected restaurants in protest at the multi-million-pound business stealing their tips.<\/p>\n

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Staff have estimated that the chain could be making as much as \u00c2\u01411m from an 8 per cent administration fee they take from tips paid to waiting staff by card.<\/p>\n

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Other high street chains have made the decision to stop charging an administration fee if customers tip their waiting staff by card.<\/p>\n

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Mary, a Pizza Express worker has written an open letter to her boss, Richard Hodgson CEO asking why the chain is still charging the administration fee when other chains have chosen to drop it.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPizza Hut and TGIF don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a fee and the Restaurant Group, owners of Chiquito and Garfunkel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dropped its admin fee a few years ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 says Mary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf they can do it, why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a hugely successful chain like Pizza Express,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Mary, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.<\/p>\n

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Waiting staff are paid the national minimum wage (NMW) of just \u00c2\u01416.50 an hour and reply heavily on their tips to top up their wages.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even begin to tell you how unfair my colleagues and I think this is,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 says Mary, who has worked at Pizza Express for 15 years and is still only on the NMW.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A lot of money<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTry living in London on \u00c2\u01416.50 an hour, we need our tips just to get by. The 8 per cent admin fee Pizza Express takes from our tips is a lot of money to a waiter,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n

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Customers dining in one of Pizza Express\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 430 chains are usually quite shocked to discover that their waiter is not getting 100 per cent of their tip and also find it unfair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCustomers often ask whether their tip goes to the staff, when I tell them about the 8 per cent administration fee, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re genuinely shocked, and will tip in cash instead,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Mary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMore shocking still is that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re discouraged from even telling customers about the admin fee.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thousands have signed a petition calling for the 8 per cent admin fee to be scrapped. Show you support and sign and share the petition <\/a>on social media.<\/p>\n

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Stay tuned to UNITElive for details of demonstrations and updates on the campaign and click here<\/a> for more information on the campaign.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"PIZZA<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pizza Express waiting staff are to stage a series of demonstrations outside selected restaurants in protest at the multi-million-pound business stealing their tips.   Staff have estimated that the chain could be making as much as \u00c2\u01411m from an 8 per cent administration fee they take from tips paid to waiting staff by card.   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"Pizza Express staff tell boss scrap admin fee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5066,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5064\/revisions\/5066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}