{"id":7664,"date":"2016-02-08T13:09:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T13:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7664"},"modified":"2016-02-08T17:07:53","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T17:07:53","slug":"fair-tips-fight-goes-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7664","title":{"rendered":"Fair tips fight goes on"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite staged a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Fair Tips\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 protest on Friday (February 5) outside STK London \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u00c2\u014150,000 a year each.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite has accused the hotel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201cdespite repeated requests.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe 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 \u00c2\u01416.50 an hour back in February 2015 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the same as waiters and bussers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when restaurant managers in London are believed to earn as much as \u00c2\u014160,000 a year,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Unite national officer Rhys McCarthy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bRestaurants and bars were banned from using tips to top up staff wages to the legal national minimum back in 2009, but that clearly hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stopped STK from finding a nifty loophole to subsidise managers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wages above and beyond the national minimum wage,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wages by tens of thousands of pounds a year each, rather than going to waiting and kitchen staff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCarthy went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf managers are not prepared to reveal what portion of the service charge and tips they are pocketing, then they should leave them alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McCarthy called on the government to speed up its investigation into tipping abuse, which was launched in the wake of last summer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tips scandal. The investigation, launched by business secretary Sajid Javid, has yet to deliver its final report.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMelia 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCarthy added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe good news is that our union is growing, chefs and waiting staff are uniting to work out their own fair tipping allocation policy.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair tips campaign has forced many restaurants to change their tipping policies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c most notably Pizza Express over the summer, when the chain dropped its admin fee after sustained Unite protests and a publicity campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite staged a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Fair Tips\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 protest on Friday (February 5) outside STK London \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"wps_subtitle":"Protest forces steakhouse to reconsider tipping policies","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7664"}],"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=7664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7665,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7664\/revisions\/7665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}