Renewed calls for transparency on tipping

It seems that my local branch of Pizza Express in Wimbledon is at the centre of a row about the lack of transparency in the way that restaurants distribute the tips given to staff.

It has been alleged that some restaurants (the example given by the BBC was Tootsies) keep up to 60% of the tips given to staff and the money that staff do receive is used to make up their salaries to the minimum wage.

Pizza Express (whose website proclaims that it's "a place where people matter") stands accused of firing a whistleblower for revealing that they take an 8% rake from tips.
Surely it is about time that those in the hospitality industry realised that they cannot continue these sharp practices without causing damage to their reputations?

As Dave Turnbull, a rep for the Unite union said: "I’m sure Pizza Express customers expect that the tips they leave for good service go to the staff and would be upset that the restaurant are creaming money off the top." Too right.

Comments

[erin]

Why is it that waiter's get paid such shit? The restaurant industry is way shady here in the U.S. You'd think we great companies like Starbucks and Whole Foods setting examples of how employees should be treated, more businesses would follow along. There needs to be an employee rights campaign, seriously.

Give these people the benefits and pay they deserve! People who wait tables, if it's a bad night, spend half their paychecks in gas getting to a job that pays shit anyway. How does this make any sense?

What can we do about it?