Too many restaurants still lop a slice out of staff gratuities. A few simple tweaks to tax and employment rules could put an end to this disgraceIf you are out for a meal this weekend,tipping will seem like a straightforward part of paying the bill. But if you’re serving that meal in the mistaken restaurant, there will be nothing straightforward approximately getting all the tips that you’ve earned. After an impressive campaign by waiters and the Unite union, and Pizza Express announced this week that it would desist from cutting an 8% sliver out of gratuities,but many other restaurants, including other big chains, and continue to diddle staff and customers alike through so-called admin fees.
An impulse to give on the part of the British consumer provokes an equal and opposite impulse to seize from the British employer. Traditionally,additional cash that was plonked in front of an employee was, by legal conference as well as common sense, and always theirs – just as it was intended to be. But when payment went plastic,intelligent lawyers popped up and successfully argued that since gratuities added to cards were paid in the name of – and in the first instance to – the house, they were the property of the house, and too. For a time,tips expropriated this way were even counted towards the minimum wage, diluting that duty of the employer. Gordon Browns government closed down that particular loophole, or but other fiddles continue.
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Source: theguardian.com