June 2017, Eva Herman
Yesterday the Guardian published an excellent article on the Unpaid Britain preliminary findings report. As part of this article they included an illustrative case study of Beach Blanket Babylon (BBB). This company first came to our attention at the beginning of May when the staff started protesting outside the BBB restaurant in Shoreditch, after being collectively owed £10,000 in unpaid wages. This case was a clear illustration of what the Unpaid Britain report identified as a business strategy where unpaid wages occur repeatedly “little and often”. The workers reported to us that the amount that they would be paid into their bank account would be random, and never completely match what they were owed.
“maybe you got £100 or £200 as you see from the statement […],when the due date for the new payslip they just send us like a couple of hundred”.
The workers informed us that this underpayment of wages added up. They claimes that when they asked for their wages management would tell them that they did not have the money and the workers would have to wait, until the next Wednesday or Friday when they were expecting a large party. When that day came they might be paid some of what they were owed but would be told to wait again. When the workers finally demanded all their wages they said they were told to leave and not to come back.
Meanwhile the Guardian article shows that the owner Robert Newmark had received a substantial amount of money from the previous Limited company that ran BBB before it was placed into liquidation. Robert Newmark and his son Bret have both been disqualified as being directors from limited companies for a joint eight and half years. They owe HMRC “£1,021,477 in relation to arrears of VAT, PAYE and National Insurance Contributions”, despite this Robert Newmark caries on being the sole shareholder of the limited company who owns BBB, and pays the staff directly from his non-limited company.
I am sad to reveal that this is not a one off case but is something that we have come across more often with other restaurants. This we feel is a clear business strategy of non-payment and will be drawing on further in our final report that we will be publishing in November. In the meantime have a look at the Guardian article it is an excellent read and a good synopsis of our interim report. I would like to thank Felicity Laurence for her excellent work.
Once the Guardian contacted BBB some money was paid to the workers.