‘Together We Are Strong’

SERTUC was proud to join the protest outside Pizza Express organised by Unite the Union, 10 August 2015, as part of its Fair Tips campaign. Unite asserts that the staff that serve the customers at Pizza Express are paid the National Minimum Wage of £6.50 per hour, and so they depend greatly on the tips paid by customers to supplement their slender wage. But Pizza Express apparently deducts an 8 per cent administration fee if the tip is not left in cash. The workers object to the deduction, and some similar restaurant chains do pass on to their staff 100 per cent of the tips that customers give.

And it seems that the customers are appalled when they find out that the money they give in good faith is top-sliced by Pizza Express to pay for administering the tips system. A customer said to us, “No, I did not know about this deduction. When I pay a tip I presume that it all goes to the staff. Hell no, I want all of it to go to the staff. It seems a bit mean spirited and cheap. Not at all the image I had of Pizza Express. Paying the lowest possible hourly wage and then deducting from the tips customers give would be a pretty nasty combination.”

SERTUC congratulates Unite, its International Hotel Workers Branch, community campaigners and workers at Pizza Express on the Fair Tips campaign. We urge workers at Pizza Express and other restaurants to join a union and organise to win decency, fairness and respect at work.

And we urge Richard Hodgson, Chief Executive Officer of Pizza Express to wake up, to ‘smell the coffee’, and to do the decent thing - pay to the workers  all of the tips that customers give – and not just part of them.

Fair Tips Campaign

Online petition 

# FairTips

@PizzaExpress

Laurie Heselden                

@TUCLaurieHeseld

Megan Dobney                  

@mdobney