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Good morning,
I am a new member. I joined this for the assistance in our case.
I work for a reputable restaurant in London.
We have service charge from the customers at 12.5% of the bill.
Some of the menu card presented to the customers stated that
“An optional service charge of 12.5% will be added to your bill, which will be fully distributed amongst our staff”. But the company did not follow it and did not distribute fully to the staffs.
So part of the employees were about to sue the company and proceeded for legal advice through solicitor. The company agreed that part of the menu cards were printed fully distributed but not all the menu cards till April 2014 to them. But what happened is during middle of 2014 the company changed all the wordings in the Menu card to a discretionary service changed to 12.5% after this matter got serious amongst the employees & solicitors.
And also they keep aside some of the service charge in a pot and say that when there is not enough money collected in certain months they will distribute it in that month. This is a regular practice form around 2006.
Don’t know what happened during the month of August 2015, part of the colleagues who are about to sue the company got a lump sum of money via confidential settlement through the lawyers.
The employees who didn’t go against the company didn’t get anything. We know the exact month when the other colleagues got the settlement and it is through pay slip. Since we are colleagues and also friends they told about the settlement.
So we are pissed off because we believed the company is right but they paid half of the staffs and rest who didn’t take legal way didn’t get anything.
So we raised a grievance with the restaurant manager and the manager confirmed the settlement in a meeting with us and said- because the other colleagues went legal they got settlement and since we chose not to sue the company we didn’t get anything.
So we raised a grievance with HR and the HR director didn’t go through the grievance procedure and asked us to seek the matters with hotel representative (the part of the employees who didn’t receive the settlement were GMB union members). So the Hr director wants the union representative to meet with hotel representative.
But According to our company procedure we can raise the grievance with Hr and a union member can present in the meeting.
We are having a meeting of grievance next week union member as witness.
My question is, are we partially discriminated? And by law can we also able to get the same mpney as others.
Any questions asked regarding the partial settlement the company is saying that there is a confidential agreement is made that they cannot speak about that, but the manager said in a meeting amongst the colleague who didn’t get settlement- that certain money has been paid out but they cannot speak about that because it is confidential and we are like 8 employees we there at the meeting.
One of our friend said that that confidential agreement can be over ridden by discrimination at work by settling part of the staff and the rest not because they didn’t sue against the company.
Interesting fact is one of the colleagues who got settlement money cannot talk about his settlement but his wife working in the restaurant is with us and didn’t sue the company and didn’t get settlement. I saw in ACAS WEBSITE THAT THE CONFIDENTIAL AGREEMENT CAN BE BROKEN TO IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS, LEGAL AD VISORS?
If so can we use these loop hole and prove that some colleagues got paid settlement and we are discriminated.
We are having a meeting next week with HR and any advice will be helpful about how to tackle this situation. (Union representative as witness in the meeting- Hopefully they can record the minutes of the meeting)
Thank you
(Sorry for the grammar mistakes)
I am a new member. I joined this for the assistance in our case.
I work for a reputable restaurant in London.
We have service charge from the customers at 12.5% of the bill.
Some of the menu card presented to the customers stated that
“An optional service charge of 12.5% will be added to your bill, which will be fully distributed amongst our staff”. But the company did not follow it and did not distribute fully to the staffs.
So part of the employees were about to sue the company and proceeded for legal advice through solicitor. The company agreed that part of the menu cards were printed fully distributed but not all the menu cards till April 2014 to them. But what happened is during middle of 2014 the company changed all the wordings in the Menu card to a discretionary service changed to 12.5% after this matter got serious amongst the employees & solicitors.
And also they keep aside some of the service charge in a pot and say that when there is not enough money collected in certain months they will distribute it in that month. This is a regular practice form around 2006.
Don’t know what happened during the month of August 2015, part of the colleagues who are about to sue the company got a lump sum of money via confidential settlement through the lawyers.
The employees who didn’t go against the company didn’t get anything. We know the exact month when the other colleagues got the settlement and it is through pay slip. Since we are colleagues and also friends they told about the settlement.
So we are pissed off because we believed the company is right but they paid half of the staffs and rest who didn’t take legal way didn’t get anything.
So we raised a grievance with the restaurant manager and the manager confirmed the settlement in a meeting with us and said- because the other colleagues went legal they got settlement and since we chose not to sue the company we didn’t get anything.
So we raised a grievance with HR and the HR director didn’t go through the grievance procedure and asked us to seek the matters with hotel representative (the part of the employees who didn’t receive the settlement were GMB union members). So the Hr director wants the union representative to meet with hotel representative.
But According to our company procedure we can raise the grievance with Hr and a union member can present in the meeting.
We are having a meeting of grievance next week union member as witness.
My question is, are we partially discriminated? And by law can we also able to get the same mpney as others.
Any questions asked regarding the partial settlement the company is saying that there is a confidential agreement is made that they cannot speak about that, but the manager said in a meeting amongst the colleague who didn’t get settlement- that certain money has been paid out but they cannot speak about that because it is confidential and we are like 8 employees we there at the meeting.
One of our friend said that that confidential agreement can be over ridden by discrimination at work by settling part of the staff and the rest not because they didn’t sue against the company.
Interesting fact is one of the colleagues who got settlement money cannot talk about his settlement but his wife working in the restaurant is with us and didn’t sue the company and didn’t get settlement. I saw in ACAS WEBSITE THAT THE CONFIDENTIAL AGREEMENT CAN BE BROKEN TO IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS, LEGAL AD VISORS?
If so can we use these loop hole and prove that some colleagues got paid settlement and we are discriminated.
We are having a meeting next week with HR and any advice will be helpful about how to tackle this situation. (Union representative as witness in the meeting- Hopefully they can record the minutes of the meeting)
Thank you
(Sorry for the grammar mistakes)
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