Employees from two TGI Fridays restaurants in the UK held a 24-hour walkout over a dispute on tips and wages — and according to CNBC, other locations are making reservations to join them.
In a statement on their website, union reps for the American dinner chain brought the Friday noise with a side of extra Jack Daniels BBQ sauce threatening a “summer of disruption” if workers’ needs are not met.
Fridays employees staging a walkout on Friday = so tight.
(Non sequitur alert: Remember when Fridays servers would wear goofy hats to work ON Fridays?)
Anyway, the anger stems from a policy introduced by the chain in February to redistribute tips from waiters to kitchen staff to reduce turnover rates in their kitchens without increasing costs for the company.
Unite, the UK’s largest union, said that the change would cost Fridays’ waiters, a lot of whom are already working for the bare minimum, up to $286 a month in lost income.
The tipping economy is so f*cked…
According to the BBC, the UK government has advised that workers should keep all tips given by the public, however there are currently no laws in place restricting restaurants from controlling distribution.
This isn’t the first time Fridays has taken advantage — In March, they were fined for not even attempting to pay its staff the UK minimum wage.
According to Unite’s regional officer Dave Turnbull, “[TGI Fridays] shareholders have gotten so greedy that they no longer want to pay their hardworking staff anything above the bare minimum.”
Dang, Turnbull, would you like some onion rings with that burger, no charge?