United Voices of the World union calls for more transparent system regarding service charges paid to cafe and restaurant workers

Demonstrators have blocked doorways and set off smoke bombs at Harrods in a protest against the store’s policy of keeping the majority of the service charge collected at its cafes and restaurants.

Between 50 and 100 demonstrators led by the union United Voices of the World, which represents some of the west London store’s waiters and kitchen staff, brought Brompton Road almost to a standstill on Saturday.

Harrods workers say company keeps up to 75% of restaurant service charge Read more

The union has claimed in the past that Harrods’s Qatari owner retains up to 75% of the service charge, a situation it says reduces the pay of its members by up to £5,000 a year.

An unspecified percentage of the service charge collected at Harrods’s 16 cafes and restaurants is shared among kitchen and waiting staff, and the union is calling for a more transparent system.

Petros Elia, the UVW general secretary, said Harrods had admitted to staff at a meeting on Friday that it took 50% of the service charge automatically added to bills. “They said that’s going to change and the system was going to be more transparent for everyone,” Elia said.

Harrods said it would not comment on the amount of the service charge that was going to workers. A spokeswoman said: “Harrods currently employs over 450 employees in its 16 restaurants, all of whom are paid fairly and above national living wage. Harrods regularly revisits its policies to ensure that we best serve our employees and has been taking steps over recent months to review and improve the current system through which it distributes its service charge.”

Harrods distributes the service charge via a “tronc” system, which automatically shares out the money. The software has proved controversial because a number of companies have allegedly used the restaurant management system to cream off money without customers or staff necessarily being aware.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters gather outside Harrods. Photograph: Matthew Chattle/REx Shutterstock

Elia said Harrods had now promised restaurant staff it would bring in an independent head of the tronc system and allow staff to sit on the committee operating it.

The union said it was attracting a growing number of members within Harrods, and the promised changes showed that working together to demand change was working.

The allocation of tips and service charges applied to bar and restaurant bills has become a hot topic, with a series of well-known chains found to be holding on to all or part of the money.

A public consultation on measures to ensure staff get a bigger share of tips finished in the summer and responses are expected to be published by the business department early next year.

The TV chef Michel Roux Jr admitted in December that his Michelin-starred restaurant Le Gavroche classed service charge income as revenue rather than tips to be shared among staff. He later said the restaurant would scrap the charge from the end of January.

Fortnum & Mason is trying to persuade staff at its Heathrow bar to move over to a tronc system. It does not currently distribute any of the 12.5% service charge collected on drinkers’ bills at Heathrow.

Harrods’s tips grab is particularly controversial as accounts filed at Companies House show the store’s owner, Qatar Holding – the investment arm of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which acquired the store from Mohamed Al Fayed in 2010 for an estimated £1.5bn – paid itself a £100.1m dividend in 2016.



That followed a record year in which pre-tax profits increased by 19% to £168m and sales rose by 4% to £1.4bn. The highest-paid director, presumed to be its managing director, Michael Ward, earned £1.6m.

