Hotel waiter claiming service charge goes to the big bosses

[FleurdeLion]

I am a former trade unionist who has campaigned for fair tips for staff. I've also worked as a kitchen porter who benefitted from the tronc system where the service charge automatically applied to restaurant bills paid by card, was shared among waiting and kitchen staff.

As of October 2024, 100% of any service charge or tip paid by card must be shared via the tronc system.

This evening I ate at a Hilton airport hotel restaurant where a 12.5% service charge was added to the bill. I know that I can ask for this amount to be deducted from the bill, and that I can give a cash tip that will go directly to the waiter.

I don't generally carry cash and I have been happy to pay a service charge, knowing that it goes to the tronc. Personally I think 12.5% is probably a bit much. I would prefer a 10% charge, or for the hospitality industry to pay people properly. But I am willing to pay the service charge, knowing it will be distributed to the kitchen and waiting staff.

This is not about tipping.

This evening, the waiter said that the service charge doesn't go to him but to "the big bosses" and can be removed. We witnessed him saying the same to an American couple at the next table who paid the full bill with the service charge and gave him a cash tip, saying that this was for him. I don't care what Americans do. If they want to give him cash, I'm fine with that.

I asked him if the money went to the tronc and he wouldn't say yes. I pointed out that the law says all the service charge must be shared by the staff and asked him if the company was breaking the law. Again he wouldn't say yes.

Am I being unreasonable in thinking that he wanted to get the full tip for himself and not share it with the rest of the team?

Should I mention his approach to the restaurant manager? I imagine that he might lose his job or at the very least be disciplined for talking to diners in this way?

But it seeds distrust with diners that the law is not being followed and implies that this mega hotel chain is screwing over its staff.

YABU - who cares, give him a cash tip instead of the service charge.
YANBU - mention it to the hotel management, because he's a CF.

You don’t need to apologise, just stop interfering and mind your own bloody business,

I think it's a symptom of how much the emotional and performative energy that goes into being front of house is undervalued. I used to find it so much more tiring than just minding my own business washing up.

Completely agree with this. Waiting on is the hardest of all the jobs in a restaurant as you get it from the kitchen staff as well as the customers.

Busy Body union reps like the OP just make things more unfair as the jobs aren’t evenly loaded so why should the tips be? kitchen staff don’t earn the tips, waiting staff do.

And yet major chains are getting away with not paying the NMW, and they have only had since 1999 to catch up with the law. Not all that impossible to get away with, it would appear. You assume two things - that employees know the law (many don't) or that they have the ability or courage to challenge employers. Moving on doesn't always mean they can't get back at you. Laws on the NMW have been around 25+years, and employers still find ways around them (and sometimes even legal ways around them), but you think that it will be very different for a law that has stood for all of 8 months? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/29/pizza-express-and-british-airways-among-firms-named-for-minimum-wage-failings#:~:text=Pizza%20Express%2C%20British%20Airways%20and,their%20staff%20the%20minimum%20wage.

I know of one group that shares the tips across the entire staff roll - including regional managers - in proportion to their wages; so the waiting staff lietrally get pennies, whilst the management can garner £hundreds. Also bear in mind how many of the low paid hospitality workers are foreign - the last airport hotel that I stayed at, the majority the waiting staff were Nepalese. I am sure they spent their flights over brushing up on their English employment law.

Read the work pages here, and they are full of people who could use the law, but won't. It simply isn't as easy as you seem to think - for all sorts of reasons people won't rock the boat, don't know there is a boat to rock, or simply want to move on and put stuff behind them. Going up against even an ex-employer isn't for the faint hearted - they have ways and means of getting around the law and manufacturing systems and evidence to suit their own purposes.

Totally agree the poster is very naive to think that every restaurant goes by the law.
We were in a restaurant a few months back, not a chain, and heard the waitress saying the same thing that tips go to the owner.

Large restaurants like the one named will definitely look for any loophole they can so that they don’t have to pay it.

Seeming as the op has decided to name the restaurant I would have thought the papers will pick it up and investigate it for her in the next few days.

No, not a single part of the service charge/tips is included in our pay. I’m playing the long game because I don’t want to end up losing my job so need to tread carefully, but I know I’ll get there eventually. I’ve even seen this guy stick his grubby little paws in the cash tips. Trust me, I know he’s withholding tips on purpose. But I know my rights and dealing with it as best as I can in the situation I’m in. Working in the head office most of the time means I have some good hours for the hospitality industry, and I have some work perks that is great for myself and my family, so I can’t do anything silly that would risk that. My main point is for the OP to please not report this poor person when he’s more than likely at the end of his tether and feeling stolen from by the very people that become absolutely loaded by having workers like him, feeling under appreciated, probably worked crazy hours. Just because there’s a law in place does not mean that law is stuck to.

People quoting the Employment Law ,Acas etc have absolutely no idea how hard it is to get protection.The legal process,expense,time and mental stamina it takes to fight arsehole employers is immeasurable and I speak as someone who's employer is a vile excuse of a human being.Pay weeks late,no apology,lack of respect for the staff and we have had no help from any of the regulatory bodies.

People only seem to be bothered if the back of house staff are potentially being ripped off by another member of staff, if it's the company potentially ripping off all the employees suddenly it's nothing to do with them.

Funny that.

Of course I'm bothered by that. I supported the law designed to enable employees to go after employers who do this.

Surely then as a customer, and someone who supports the law, you would want to know if you were paying a service charge or leaving a tip that wasn't then being distributed in accordance with the law?

Companies barely listen to their customers these days but they listen to them more than their staff and the staff know this. The companies know there's very little chance of them being outed by their staff, because they've got too much to lose. 'Badgering' as you put it, customers, and those customers being unhappy with the practice, is pretty much the only realistic avenue for hospitality staff to get this issue noticed - but then you get people like OP who say nope, can't be happening, there's a law, and want to report it, which then gives the company a chance to get rid of the boat rocker and keep things as they are.

Surely if you fight for these rights because you're passionate about it as OP says, and those rights have had to be fought for to start with because so many companies were keeping the service charge/tips intended for staff, given by customers, and you hear that it's not being followed by a company, your first thoughts would be to report the company, not the worker for bringing said company into disrepute for talking about what might well be the truth.
As I and many others have said, thinking that because now there's a law it's being followed properly automatically and anyone who says that's not happening is lying for their own gains, is naive.
People have posted about nmw not being paid, and being investigated and back pay awarded, there's a law about that too but obviously it's still happening that companies aren't paying it.

Low paid workers in 'unskilled' jobs are in a very weak position when it comes to taking on big companies with legal teams behind them. And the companies know and bank on that to get away with it.

Yes some employers break the law but, daunting as it may be, as an employee being stiffed by the company the only effective way to stop that is to go through the legal process to enforce your rights. The customer can’t do that and tipping in cash doesn’t do it. It doesn’t matter whether the server is lying or not, if you believe back of house staff deserve the tips/service charge just like the server, tipping cash is the wrong way to go.

I can't believe this thread is still going on. What a fucking busy body you are. I can't believe you asked other members of staff and are still banging on "the law changed" "the kitchen staff". Oh bore off and leave it.

If you had read the original post you would know I used to be a kitchen porter - you know, the lowest of the kitchen staff who washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen, puts out the bins etc.

The waiter was lying. I was given the tronc policy and the staff confirmed they are being paid properly according to the law. He was being a CF.

You did? You asked an employer for their policy, and then asked their staff on the employers premises whether they were being treated fairly? You a total stranger quite possibly a "mystery shopper" on behalf of the employer, rooting out dissent.... of course they would tell the truth in such circumstances.

I don't think I would assume that the liar is the waiter really.

I spoke with staff members. I have no reason to believe they are lying. The waiter was evasive about the law and about the tronc policy. He refused to answer me when I asked if there even was a tronc. When I asked if Hilton were breaking the law, he was evasive.

Around three years ago most staff I asked told me they weren't allowed to comment on service charge and tipping policy. This waiter spontaneously told me the money went to the "big bosses" without me even asking about the service charge.

I was in the trade union movement for a long time. I know what people try to get away with. I have been asking about service charges and working conditions for years.

I am confident he was a CF. And trying to fuck over his colleagues. Which is one of the worst things you can do if you're a trade unionist. Riding the benefits of work done by others, then trying to get even more, when he is going to get cash from Americans anyway.

And I would not have spoken to anyone else about it if he were pocketing cash tips - even though they are also supposed to be shared, I know a lot of staff keep cash tips and I don't care about that.

I can’t get my head round someone being so naive. Of course they gave you a copy of the policy and of course the staff lied to you said they were paid in accordance with it.

If you get given a crap shift (like breakfast on Wednesday) you might get very little in tips versus one at a time of the week when people are eating big meals, ordering wine and tipping a percentage, which is why tips are shared under the new system.
Customers who are fibbed to in this way are far more likely to refuse to pay the 12.5% added by the restaurant, and give what would usually be shared out among all the staff to this one waiter. He's cheating his colleagues, unless they're all at it.

Bloody helll. You are a fromer trade unionist and you're talking about speaking to managers about what a waiter says
I donr know if this is a wind up post, but it sure sounds like it.
Solidarity with working peoole on usually shit wages ..whatever happened to you?

Sounds like a waiter trying it on to get a tip in cash. It happened to me a few weeks back and I know for a fact that tips paid on card are distributed fairly, waiters aren’t above trying to pull a trick

How do you know it for a fact?

So what should I do OP if I don’t want my tip to go to the kitchen staff who haven’t earnt it?

As I said in a pp my tip is not for the food, or the clean plates or even the service of wine recommendations and bringing my food out. All of that I expect within the basic price of the meal. I presume they are all paid a what they consider a fair wage for their work.

My tip pays for the extra human interaction, the banter, the noticing my wine glass is empty and refilling it, the conversation which I don’t get from anyone but the bar and waiting staff.

Am I legally allowed to say I want my tip split only amongst the staff who served me or do I have to always give money to people I haven’t even seen?

If what OP suspects is happening though, this guy is shafting his colleagues to line his own pocket, (and lying to her to do so).

The trade unionists had words for that behaviour. They weren’t fans.

Big if.

Yes — we can’t know.

But the idea here that we should expect a trade unionist to be more relaxed about this than a random customer is a strange one.