Union demands fair deal for waiting staff

Campaigners trying to stop some of the UK's largest restaurant chains using customers' tips to top up staff pay took their message to the streets yesterday.

Activists from the trade union Unite told restaurant customers enjoying the weather in Norwich that after finishing their meal in the sun, a slice of the tip they leave the waiting staff could also end up in the pockets of the restaurant company.

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The union collected hundreds of signatures in support of the campaign by The Independent to stop the practice.

Some of the main offenders operate chains in the city, including Café Rouge, Caffè Uno and Bella Italia. All use a legal loophole allowing tips to be put towards paying their staff the national minimum wage, which is £5.52 for anyone over the age of 21.

The city is also home to two Pizza Express restaurants, where management take an 8 per cent slice of credit card tips as an "administration charge".

Some diners were shocked to discover where their tips and service charges may be ending up. Ted and Sue Yarrow, a retired couple enjoying a meal at Caffè Uno, had no idea that a credit card tip left at the restaurant could be used to top up staff wages.

"We eat out a couple of times a week and I just assumed that when I left a tip, it would go to the waiter or waitress who served us – that's who I intended to give it to," said Mr Yarrow.

"I have no intention of handing it over to the company in order to help them pay their staff the legal limit. They should get that anyway."

The couple said they would now only leave cash tips, all of which have to go straight to staff by law. Many others signing up to support the campaign were people with experience in the restaurant sector, who were well aware of the unfair use of tips.

"I'm definitely signed up to the campaign," said Amber, who works as a waitress in a local pub and has lost out after her employers took a slice of staff tips.

"I work at the weekends when we receive lots of tips, but sometimes I receive as little as £3 for every £20 left by customers I have served. It's not fair."

Gary Napier, a 24-year-old kitchen porter, said: "I've heard of tips being unfairly taken. Employers seem to be able to get away with it all the time."

One activist, who did not want to be named, said he had been sacked as a manager of a restaurant belonging to a major chain for speaking out about tips. "As well as telling customers about the use of tips, we also have to make sure that workers who speak out are protected," he said. "Friends who work at major restaurant firms have told me about unfair tip policies and low wages, but at the moment they are too afraid to talk about it."

Dave Turnbull, a regional organiser for Unite, said that recent campaigns – including The Independent's "fair tips, fair pay" campaign – were making a difference.

"We are finding increasingly that people are aware that the tips they are leaving for good service are going towards their minimum wage pay," he said. "Now people are coming up to us wanting to sign our petition, rather than because we are asking them to. We just hope that this pressure will lead to political action to close the legal loophole."

Protesters targeted Carluccio's in Canary Wharf last week. London Citizens, a community organisation, unfurled a banner in the restaurant after it emerged that the company pays its staff a basic hourly wage of £3.75, using tips to top it up.