A WAITRESS has published her payslips online in a bid to prove her bosses took over £700 of her tips.
Emma Smith, from Manchester, was an employee at Albert’s restaurant in Didsbury for five months before she quit last week over the tip row.
Taking to Facebook, the 27-year-old shared a selection of her payslips which she insists show hundreds of pounds deducted from her tips.
The customer service manager also claimed the restaurant did not give staff tips paid by credit card, charged staff for making mistakes, and fined them if they were late clearing tables.
The restaurant has admitted keeping some of the tips given to staff but insisted it was no more than 10%. They also admitted a small number of charges for staff mistakes.
Emma’s post has caused a storm on social media, and already has over 3,800 shares and 2,000 likes.
Taking to Facebook, the former waitress claimed: “Albert’s unfairly take tips off their staff to line the owners pockets.
“If you’re happy that the majority of your card tips go direct to the company then continue to do so, I just thought everyone should be aware of this. The only tips we actually get are cash.”
She also alleged: “I have just left this company as 70% of the card tips and 10% service charges go directly to the owners and are used to pay the salaried staff their wages.
“At the end of every night Albert’s take a percentage of our sales off us. Whether we have actually made the tips or not, they take a cut of everything we have sold from us that day. So theoretically we could end up paying out of our own pocket.
“Then every fortnight we get a cheque showing us how much money we have made on card tips and then it shows the massive reduction that goes to ‘Albert’s house’ and the disheartening figure that we are actually coming away with.
“Some cheques can be in minus figures if we haven’t made enough, and so we then owe the company money.”
Alongside her resignation email, Emma also shared her payslips.
They show £657.07 deducted by ‘House Didsbury’. In one instance, £224.40 was taken from Emma’s wages, so instead of being paid almost £500, she was left with a total of £181.21.
The staff also received a cheque every two weeks for cash tips, and one of Emma’s from April 14 this year shows a deduction of £60.91 to House Didsbury.
Another member of staff, who wished to remain anonymous, provided a slip indicating that House Didsbury had deducted £279.10 from his tips and £55.82 was given to the kitchen – he was left with only £6.75.
Speaking today, Emma said: “It was horrible, I was only working there part time to top up my full time job, and I was exhausted. I would go home crying to my family and be complaining about it, I just decided enough was enough.”
On social media, Troy Pickering claimed: “I’m pretty sure this kind of s*** is actually illegal. All business have losses. It’s usually tax deductible. They cannot hold the staff accountable for that. It’s the nature of business.”
Donna Cookm asked: “No way they would get away with that here in Canada.”
While Emma Bode said: “What a joke I’m certainly never going there again.”
James Ramsbottom, owner of Elle R Leisure who are behind Albert’s said today: “I cannot comment on specific allegations as that is now a legal matter.
“However more than 90% of tips earned, go to staff on site.
“Very occasionally, staff have been asked to contribute towards mistakes made but this has only amounted, in total, to £170 in the last 12 months. Again this system is in place to ensure good service.
“If a server makes persistent errors, it can massively affect service, not just to the table in question, but the whole restaurant. However this is very rarely used and is at the discretion of the manager.”
In August 2015, Elle R Leisure admitted that staff at Albert’s did not get all of their tips.
The company said that some larger parties have a 10 per cent service charge added to the bill and part of that is kept by the company.
They claimed this is used to pay for ‘staff welfare items’ – such as nights out, food and drinks and training for employees.
