Tighten up over tipping warning

by Tom Stainer Pub bosses have been warned to tighten up on tipping policies to avoid long and costly employment litigation.

The warnings come after two members of staff in a bar in Dalkeith, Scotland, launched an unfair dismissal case against their employer after being sacked for accepting drinks from customers and drinking on duty (see box).

Employment lawyers and in-dustry experts believe that unless licensees make sure they have a clear policy in place about accepting tips and free drinks, they may find it difficult to prove staff are not stealing stock or abusing their position.

Amanda Jones, a partner at employment specialists Maclay Murray Spens, said: "The dangers are that if there aren't clear guidelines as to what is or isn't acceptable in terms of tips or free drinks, it can end up in a situation where the staff don't think they are doing anything wrong while the manager thinks they are.

The solution is quite straightforward.

Managers should set out clear and unambiguous guidelines which state what individual employees can and can't do."

Jones said the simplest solution to the free-drinks and tipping problem was to tell staff they couldn't drink behind the bar.

She added it would be perfectly within employers' rights to tell staff not to accept any tips or free drinks ­ but stressed that any policy had to apply equally to all members of staff and management.

Peter Johnson, regional industrial organiser for the National Association of Licensed House Managers, said the Dalkeith case highlighted a difficult problem for bar staff.

He said: "It's important that bar staff are very careful about accepting drinks from customers.

There is no blanket policy, different pubs have different policies on tips and staff can run into trouble.

They need to appear whiter than white and give no reason for a manager or owner suspecting they're taking money or drinks that haven't been paid for."

Johnson said licensees should set out a clear system for accepting tips and free drinks from customers and explain it to all staff to avoid potential problems at a later date.

Dismissed after sting operation Suspicious bosses at the Midlothian Indoor Bowling Centre, in Dalkeith, launched a sting operation after noticing stock was going missing.

Agnes Robertson, 54, and Christina Allan, 42, were secretly recorded on CCTV for a week while they worked behind the bar.

Managers viewed the video tapes and, believing the pair were helping themselves to free drinks, gave them their marching orders.

However, the pair claimed they were just helping themselves to drinks bought for them by customers at the club ­ and have taken the bowling club to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal.

Allan told the tribunal: "If it was bowling season, we could be bought 60 drinks a week easily and 20 on a Friday night.

"It would have been impossible to have drunk them all at the same time, so we would ring them up on the till and have them at another time.

We did not keep a record of the drinks we were bought, but we kept track in our minds."

The women were dismissed for gross misconduct for drinking on duty, not paying for drinks and taking money from the till to hand out to customers.

The tribunal sat to hear the case at the start of April and has yet to report its decision.