Intermediate 
Angry waiters are asking for public support in a battle to keep their tips. PizzaExpress branches are to be targeted by protesters, in an attempt to get the restaurant chain to stop taking a proportion of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Campaigners have also started an online petition in the hope that restaurant-goers will support their demands.
PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every 1 paid when tips are given by card. This is a policy that has made some employees angry. The chain, which has 430 branches around the UK and is particularly popular with families, makes around 1m a year from the practice, according to the union Unite.
We believe this 8% fee is unfair and that, if the chain values its staff, it should be paying them the total tips they are given by customers, said Chantal Chegrinec of Unite. We are starting with PizzaExpress but they are not the only ones and we will turn our attention to other companies after this.
The protests are being organized by local branches of Unite. The  rst is taking place at the British Museum branch of PizzaExpress in London. The union has also written to the restaurant chains CEO. Unite began the campaign following a survey of its PizzaExpress members after the chain was sold to a Chinese company in 2014. One of the top issues was the 8% deduction from their tips.
One disgruntled PizzaExpress employee, who wants to remain anonymous, said that the admin fee was costing her 3 a night. I have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years, she said in a letter to Unite. After all this time, Im still only paid the national minimum wage of 6.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I are very reliant on customer tips to top up our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can get away with taking a percentage of our hard-earned tips left on a card, I get upset.
Ask and Zizzi, two other restaurant chains, also deduct 8% of the tips paid by card. But other chains deduct even more. Cafe_ Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%; so do Strada and Giraffe.
A spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that its admin charge was to cover the cost of running a tronc  a pay arrangement used to distribute tips among staff. We made big efforts to set up this tronc system, which is run by staff. They independently decide how tips made by electronic card payment are distributed between the restaurant teams; it is a system run by employees for the employees, she said.
The chain, which sells 29m pizzas a year in its UK restaurants, denied that it pro ts from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. Frankie & Bennys, Chiquitos and Garfunkels used to charge 10% but they stopped doing this several years ago.
Unite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London  they distributed lea ets to customers who were shocked and disgusted by the practice. PizzaExpress says the charge is mentioned in small print at the bottom of its menus. But the employee who wrote to Unite said that, when she mentioned the charge to customers, they were always surprised. Most customers would then pay the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have signed Unites online petition.
One waiter, who doesnt work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain, said that at least a third of his income is from tips. He doesnt want to be identi ed because he is scared there will be reprisals. I work in a busy London branch and, on an average night, I serve 150 people and earn 40 to 50 in tips, he says. That might sound like a lot but that money is crucial to me because my basic pay is only 6.50 an hour.
Conservative MP Andrew Percy has asked for a change in the law that would give restaurant staff more control over tips. He said he plans to raise the issue in parliament.