What the dispute was actually about

The first thing that bothered me was not how large or small the amount was.

It was that nobody could explain how the service charge was calculated or how it was distributed.

Across my entire employment, I never received an explanation — written or verbal — of any of the following.

• How the service charge was calculated
• What proportion of it was distributed to staff
• Whether distribution was weighted by role or performance, and if so on what basis
• Where the undistributed portion went

The payslip showed the service charge as a single total figure. No breakdown, no basis for the calculation.

In other words, the person receiving it had no way of checking whether the amount was correct.

Looking back, that inability to verify was itself procedurally very important.

Acting on my own impression alone would have been risky, so I checked with colleagues first.

Several of them described the same thing: the service charge they received amounted to roughly £1–3 on top of the hourly rate.

Set against the restaurant's turnover and the 12.5% customers were paying, that level plainly did not add up.

What this told me was that I was not simply mistaken. It also told me that nobody knew the exact position.

It is worth confirming whether your sense that something is wrong is grounded in fact, before you act on it. That said, at this stage I would not move towards "let's all protest together." Involving other people creates risk for the people you involve.

In my case some colleagues did help with witness evidence, but that came at a later stage.

Around the time I was considering raising the suspected underpayment with the company, the possibility of taking the matter to Acas came up internally.

After that, a manager explained to me, in substance, that going to Acas about this could lead to dismissal.

I want to be careful here. That is what I was told, and how I understood it. The tribunal has made no finding to that effect.

But for me, it was the event that shaped what I did next. In fact, I could not bring myself to make the approach for some time afterwards.

There is one thing I can draw from this.

In a workplace where you feel that speaking up may count against you, verbal exchanges will not protect you.

Put things in a form that can be checked later — chat messages, email. If you are going to have a conversation, try to have it with a third party present rather than one to one.

I go into this in more detail in the next chapter.

Shortly after the period in which I was considering raising the issue, the company moved.

With a solicitor involved, a contract dealing with the service charge was drawn up.

Until then, nothing about the treatment of the service charge had been put in writing.

What I received about the contract was a single short message asking me to sign it. There was no explanation of the contents and no follow-up. That message also contained routine work instructions, and honestly, at first my attention went to that part.

About four weeks later, I was told in substance that unless I signed immediately, my employment could not continue.

At that point I read it properly, and found points that conflicted with what I had understood until then. I did not sign.

And after refusing to sign, I was dismissed.

This is another part that needs care in how it is written. I did not bring an unfair dismissal claim. So there is no tribunal finding on the reason for the dismissal. I can state the sequence of events as fact, but "therefore I was dismissed for that reason" is not a causal claim I am in a position to make.

Looking back, there were several things I wanted to say at this point.

The absence of any explanation. The atmosphere that made it hard to speak. The way the contract was produced. The timing of the dismissal.

But what an Acas or tribunal process can deal with is what you can evidence and reduce to a figure.

What I finally narrowed it down to was this single point.

The difference between what I should have received out of the service charge collected from customers, and what I actually received.

That can be framed as a claim for unpaid wages.

Conveniently, the material supporting that claim was entirely records the company itself created in the ordinary course of business.

• Daily sales reports from the POS system (Z reports) — total daily takings and total service charge
• Rotas — how many people worked that day
• Payslips — what was actually paid to me

No guesswork or reconstruction required. Line those three up against each other and the shortfall falls out.

The calculation itself is set out in full in "Work out what you are owed".

For background, it is worth touching on where UK law stands.

Under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 (the "Tipping Act"), employers may not retain tips or service charges for themselves and must allocate them to staff.

Employers are also required to:

• have a written policy on how tips are allocated
• keep records of allocation and disclose them on request from a worker
• allocate in a fair and transparent way

One important point here.

"Fair" does not mean "the same amount for everyone."

Weighting by length of service, role, or performance is not in itself unlawful. In fact, the respondent later argued exactly that (covered in "Evidence and correspondence").

But weighted allocation only works on one condition: the rule has to actually exist, be written down, and be capable of being explained.

The problem in my case was not weighted allocation. It was that there was no rule to refer to at all.

Where there is no rule, the only option left is to build something that can be verified from the records.