To: Karen Forrester, CEO, TGI Friday's

TGI Friday's: Pay us fairly

Last Friday, my workmates and I went on strike. We will not be ignored or exploited anymore.

Please send a message to the CEO of TGI Friday's to let her know she needs to sit down with workers and our union and find a sensible solution. Let her know we are not acting on our our own and that hundreds of people are standing with us.

Why is this important?

My name is Lauren and I've been working at TGI Friday's for 8 years.

Workers like me were given two days’ notice, before we were stripped of 40% of our tips. This means some of my workmates will lose £250 a month.

We’ve put up with treatment like this for years, and now me and fellow Unite members are saying enough is enough.

We’re standing up to a rotten system, built on low pay and exploitation. We won't back down.

Please support us by sending a message that can’t be ignored. We know TGI Friday's are sensitive to public pressure so if enough of us send a message, they’ll be forced to respond and explain why they continue attacking our conditions.

10,902

of 15,000 signatures

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I work at TGI Friday's

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Writing to

Karen Forrester

CEO, TGI Friday's

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Dear Karen,

I’d like to add my support to the open letter from TGI Friday’s workers (see below). Without the dedication of your staff, the business would be nothing. I stand with them in their call for fair pay and fair tips, and ask you to sit down with them and have a sensible discussion about resolving this.

Regards.

From: TGI Friday’s workers

We have worked for you for five, ten, fifteen or even twenty years. We stayed. We were loyal. Made careers out of waitressing and bartending, a rare phenomenon within the UK restaurant industry, which tends to have high staff turnover rates.

We trained hard to be the best in the business, we certified and re-certified, even when you made us download the ‘TGI Fridays Academy’ app and complete our training at home, off the clock and unpaid.

When you took time and a half away from us on bank holidays, and then away from us over Christmas Eve and New Year, we didn’t kick up much of a fuss.

When stores began to lose shift meals, meaning we now work 12 hour shifts and have to pay to eat food that we know costs the company a fraction of the price we’re forced to pay, we started to question what was happening to our beloved Fridays.

Then in January it hit us.  Every time the government’s national living wage increased TGI Fridays would try to claw that money back by stripping away our perks and benefits.

When early in the new year and with just two days’ notice you told us you told us that you were taking 40% of waiting staffs’ card tips and giving them to the kitchen, we’d had enough.

The 33p per hour national minimum wage increase set by the government that we had been so excited for was wiped out in an instant, and we instead found ourselves heading into the new year facing financial losses of £250 a month because of this cruel tip policy change.

To add insult to injury, you gave us just two days’ notice to figure out how we were going to pay our mortgages, buy our weekly groceries or carry on paying for our children’s extracurricular activities.

We wanted answers – but when we called the phone number provided to us you didn’t answer.

You claim to have an open door policy but when we sought answers to our questions we have been repeatedly shut down.

A few years ago the kitchen were paid a much higher hourly rate than front of house, but as the minimum wage has increased chefs’ wages have stayed the same.

You should have been increasing their pay in line with living costs year on year, that would have been the right thing to do. Instead you have taken from front of house staff, many who already live paycheque to paycheque.

You claim that ‘servers still keep 100% of their cash tips.’ This is a lie. You know that your waiters and waitresses already take a percentage from their total tips and share them. This money is given to the bartender who made the drinks, the server assistants who laid the tables and ran the food, and the guys who take our guests their desserts.

This isn’t about minimum wage servers not wanting to share. It’s about a company whose shareholders have gotten so greedy that they no longer want to pay their hardworking staff anything above the bare minimum. 
All we want is to be heard, and to have our questions answered.

We are not the enemy. We are the faces of Fridays. We love our stores and our teams and our guests. You have lied and denied us access to remedy.

Lauren.

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Last signed by:

Cristina G.

2018-08-12 21:52:33 +0100

Frank K.

2018-08-12 21:04:09 +0100

Martin K.

2018-08-11 13:00:06 +0100

Deirdra B.

2018-08-08 20:42:51 +0100

Zar Ni T.

2018-08-07 19:41:35 +0100

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Updates

2018-06-01 12:51:01 +0100

Today’s the third Friday in a row that TGI Friday’s wait staff are on strike. Here are 4 more ways you can help them:

1: It’s really hard to take strike action when you’re in a low paid job. Can you help donate to the fighting fund? https://www.gofundme.com/tgifriday-friends-and-family-group

2: Use your social media to show some solidarity. Tweet @TGIFridaysUK - Tell them you support the waiting staff and to pay them fairly! #AllEyesOnTGIs

3: If you were planning to visit a TGI Friday and there’s a picket line on, please respect the strike and don’t cross it – find somewhere else to eat (say hi to the pickets first though, they’ll appreciate it!)

4: If you’re eating at TGI’s, please tip in cash until this is sorted. It’s a good idea anyway in restaurants that you don’t know pass tips on fairly – Cash is more likely to go to the staff.

2018-05-31 10:27:41 +0100

TGI waitress Sallie has written for the blog LabourList about why she and colleagues have been taking strike action https://labourlist.org/2018/05/why-were-on-strike-today-at-tgi-fridays/ A second day of strikes saw the campaign grow in London and Manchester, and there are another wave of strikes planned for Friday 1 June, if the company still refuse to talk to staff about their concerns.

2018-05-25 19:19:01 +0100

10,000 signatures reached

2018-05-22 09:27:28 +0100

Dozens of TGI Friday's staff walked out and joined picket lines on Friday, for the first strikes. Congratulations to everyone who stood up to take part in it, and thanks to all who've been adding their solidarity online. TGI Fridays workers at Trafford Centre, Greater Manchester and Haymarket, Piccadilly in London have also voted 100% in favour of strike action and are set to walk out for 24 hours this Friday (May 25). http://unitelive.org/tgi-fridays-historic-first-ever-strike/

If you didn't sign this yet, please do help keep up the pressure on TGI Friday to come to the table with their staff. And if you did, please share it - every person we tell helps the campaign for fair treatment at TGI Friday's.

2018-05-18 21:57:14 +0100

5,000 signatures reached

2018-05-17 13:26:43 +0100

1,000 signatures reached

2018-05-17 11:40:43 +0100

500 signatures reached

2018-05-17 11:18:55 +0100

100 signatures reached

2018-05-17 11:17:27 +0100

50 signatures reached

2018-05-17 11:16:31 +0100

25 signatures reached

2018-05-17 11:15:33 +0100

10 signatures reached