TGI Fridays should play fair over tips as strikes loom

Tipping is causing controversy again amid a dispute between staff at TGI Fridays and their employer over how gratuities paid via cards are divvied up.

The restaurant chain in February introduced a system that takes 40 per cent of these and hands them to kitchen staff. Now staff at two outlets are planning a walk out with Unite, their union, predicting a summer of disruption.

There are some who would look at this and say, well, isn’t what the company has done only fair? Shouldn't the people who prepare the meals get a cut too?

That misses the point. The move has taken a substantial chunk of money out of the hands of low wage staff who can ill afford to lose it. The UK’s minimum wage is not, remember, sufficient to fund a decent basic standard of living. For that you need to earn the voluntary Living Wage, set by the Living Wage Foundation in most of Britain.

Unite says staff have lost as much as £250 a month, which is a very significant sum. And this is not about them not wanting to share because they already do. They kick over 20 per cent of their tips to bar staff and assistants.

Kitchen staff weren’t covered because they used to earn significantly more.

But the gap has been narrowing, as the minimum wage has risen.

The union believes that the company – which has waffled about paying staff fairly and seeking a resolution – has used the policy as a back door means of raising the wages of kitchen staff without incurring the cost of doing so itself, the better to keep hold of people for whose services there is some competition. It's hard to argue with its logic.

To fix the problem it is the employer that should be paying up, not another group of workers.

The pity of it is, Unite tells me TGI Fridays was among the employers that did the right thing when some firms were using card based tips to top up the minimum wage, signing up to its fair tipping code and displaying stickers prominently.

The business has since been taken over by a private equity firm, and was named and shamed by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage earlier this year.

It is the growth of card based payments that have facilitated this sort of thing, and the increasing popularity of using mobile phones is likely to exacerbate the problem until there is legislation to clarify the issue.

In the meantime, those wanting to show solidarity with the striking workers would be advised to take cash with them to cover tips whenever they eat out.

Consumer power can play an important role in stamping out this sort of thing.