CAMPAIGN Fair Tips Unite’s fair tips ‘massive victory’ has given workers a voice


Changing unjust laws can take years, even decades. And getting there is long and winding road travelled by unsung heroes who commit to relentless campaigning until their message reaches critical mass – that distinct point in time when they’ve suddenly got both the public and the government on their side.


This was true of the suffragettes who fought for women’s voting rights, for LGBT activists who campaigned for equal marriage laws, and for the generations of trade unionists who’ve won for us the workplace rights we enjoy today.


Unite is now at a ‘tipping point’ with its very own grassroots-based campaign in which an actual change in the law is just around the corner.


Waiters are among the lowest paid and most exploited workers in the UK – the tips they receive from customers are often their only lifeline enabling them to make ends meet.


But hidden theft on a massive scale happens every day in restaurants and cafes up and down the country. Whether it’s charging so-called ‘admin fees’ on tips left on credit cards or tacking on a bogus ‘service charge’ that either only partly goes to staff or not at all, tip swiping is a common practice.


This could all soon be consigned to the dustbin of history after Unite’s award winning Fair Tips campaign, which ramped up the pressure last summer, has culminated in a remarkable achievement – the government was forced to investigate tipping practices.


An eight-month investigation by then-


business secretary Sajid Javid and his department resulted in a report published in May.


The report concluded what Unite has been arguing all along – that the voluntary code of practice governing tipping practices should be put on statutory footing; that customers should be made fully aware of what is done with the tips they leave; and that employers’ deducting of tips should be prevented or limited unless compliance with tax law is required.


Unite officer for the hospitality sector Dave Turnbull called the publication of the report a “massive victory”.


“It shows that even the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers can have a powerful voice when they stand united with their union behind them,” he said. It is also a massive and rightful victory for all those waiting staff who have worked tirelessly to expose sharp practices in the hospitality industry,” Turnbull added.


And work tirelessly they did. It all started last summer, when Unite hospitality workers and Community members organised action days against Pizza Express, a high-profile high-street chain which charged its waiters an 8 per cent admin fee for all tips left on credit cards.


Campaigners held protests outside Pizza Express outlets, standing on tables and asking diners to leave all tips in cash – and to tell management why. They picketed outside restaurants and leafletted thousands of customers.


This was the first in a series of demonstrations which caught the public’s


imagination, alongside a coordinated social media campaign and a TUC petition.


By September, nearly every major newspaper had run a story on Unite’s Fair Tips campaign and one by one – first Giraffe, then Pizza Express, Belgo and Zizzi, among others – restaurants began dropping their policy of deducting fees from credit card tips.


Unite also shined a spotlight on other unscrupulous tipping practices, such as restaurants stealing service charges – a practice which Cote Brasserie has since dropped – and requiring staff to pay a percentage of their table sales at the end of each shift, which Las Iguanas and Wahaca finally ended.


And these changes are only the beginning – Unite’s campaign has had an ongoing domino effect, with more and more restaurants changing their tipping policies every day.


A survey conducted by Unite, which the union has used as evidence in a recent government consultation, offered a glimpse into the very palpable awakening in the public consciousness following Unite’s campaign.


Of the 587 responses submitted by both customers and staff alike, a full 94 per cent said they wanted the government’s tipping code published in the report to be mandatory for all employers, while nearly 90 per cent said that the legislation should ensure that staff have full ownership of all their tips.


“Over 500 people used words such as ‘immoral’, ‘unethical’, ‘appalling’ and


CRITICA 24 uniteWORKS Summer 2016


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