Maybe Waiters Will Get Tips?

At last the UK Government has pledged to introduce a new law to ban restaurants from taking a cut of their staff's tips. Many eating houses have been exposed for taking deductions from gratuities left by customers and I can recall blogging about two years ago that a Government Minister had pledged to take action. Let's hope the latest 'pledge' becomes reality. Everyone should be treated fairly. The Prime Minister is reported as saying that she will introduce tough new legislation to ensure that workers get to keep all their tips - banning employers from making any deductions.

The coffee shop chain, Le Pain Quotidlen  stopped paid staff breaks and failed to pass on all staff tips following the increase in the minimum wage. While pizza chain Zizzi has been accused of slashing staff perks, including the amount of tips paid out. Cote, the French restaurant chain, has been 'outed' for using automatic service charges to subsidise the waiters' wages. Disgraceful! Meanwhile other firms have been taking ten per cent of the service charge if diners paid by card or were failing to make it clear that they did not want to pay a service charge, or that tips did not go to staff.

Currently in the UK, there is only a voluntary code of practice, dating back to 2009, to improve the information available on tips, gratuities and service charges. Sadly, there is a caveat on new legislation - the Government say, 'a new law will new introduced as soon as Parliament time allows' suggesting it will be 2019 before it comes into force.

Watch this space - I hope I'm not still blogging about this in 2020 or beyond!