Two Englishmen, a Brazilian, a Thai, and a Singaporean were awarded £36,000 after a British court found their Chinese employers guilty of discrimination for not allowing them to eat leftover sushi and teppanyaki grilled meats, which the Chinese staff were permitted to enjoy.
The owners of the Elements Oriental Buffet Restaurant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, were told to pay more than £36,000 to the pair and three others after a tribunal ruled they had been treated differently from Chinese employees.
Whitfield, 20, along with Michelle Darch, 19, from Singapore, Thai national Aw Owen, 29, and Joao Dos Santos, 31, from Brazil, all missed out on perks at the restaurant simply because of their ethnic origin.
While Chinese staff could eat expensive sushi and meat and fish off the Japanese Tepanyaki grill, the others had to make do with noodles.
The Chinese workers also regularly went home with a bigger share of customer tips, the tribunal heard.
When the non-Chinese workers complained about the discrimination, little was done. Instead the staff, who earned around £5.10 an hour, had their working hours cut.
Besides forcing the non-Chinese employees to eat noodles, the restaurant owners were also found guilty of withholding tips from them:
Mr Dos Santos, who started working at the restaurant in January 2006 but has since left, agreed.
He said: “We used to get our tips in envelopes and on a number of occasions I would see more money being put into the envelopes of Chinese staff compared to my own. I complained all the time, but there was never a satisfactory answer.
The restaurant owners blamed the shortened hours and low tips on a downturn in business, which resulted in customers giving “only around 1 per cent of their bills as tips,” but the tribunal rejected the defense as not credible.
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29 Comments
“Model minority” indeed!
I’m predicting we’ll see a lot more of this in the future. As China grows stronger and more influential, the rest of the world will be more strict in holding them to international (or perhaps “Western”) standards.
Hey, are there any other examples of this in the news today?
I don’t understand Koehler at all. Yesterday in a very similiar incident, Koehler didn’t seem too concerned with these kind of issues in Korea..Today he is disgusted. Me thinks someone is afraid or far too defensive of his new homeland.
I often find it helpful to look at the post author before commenting.
“I often find it helpful to look at the post author before commenting.”
X-D Hilarious.
Glad that one got straightened out. Working in a restaurant is crappy as it is, but discriminated? Yikes.
I do wish that the court decision focused more on uneven tip distribution and wage cuts (absolute bullshit) than staff meal (dick move) though…
Considering the mercury in sushi and the carcinogens in grilled meat, the Chinese should have argued that they were being especially solicitous of the laowais’ health.
apologies.
Since when did they have tipping in the UK? That to me is the big revelation here.
@# 3 and 4,
Besides looking at the post author, it’s also good to read the post carefully. I didn’t exactly stomp my feet in indignation. The story was blogged for its novelty and absurdity.
That does it. Now I’ll boycott the Olympics for SURE!
I’m pretty darn certain I wouldn’t eat leftover food from someone not related to me by marriage… Then again, I’m equally certain I wouldn’t move to Asia, get a job in a restaurant, and expect to be treated the same as any of the locals…
Too “anglo”, too tall, too heavy, too “occidental”…
Do I pass the test, Yoda?
The restaurant was in Britain.
#8,
I never heard of the kitchen staff getting tips.
I know people who worked as chefs at some pretty swanky restaurants. They were all livid about the tipping custom. A chef at the bottom of the ladder earned 10$ an hour slaving over the hot stoves while the pretty waitresses got 200$ tips because of the food they had prepared was good.
SONAGI: What??? You didn’t stomp your feet in indignation?? How about the title of your post? That alludes to something other than just the ridiculous amount of sarcasm that often plagues decent posts on this blog.
#9 And thanks for the scolding. I’ll be sure to do a better job of interpreting you in the future.
The title is sarcastic because the story was absurd. The plaintiffs won their case anyway, so there’s no cause for anyone’s blood pressure to go up.
“while the pretty waitresses got 200$ tips because of the food they had prepared was good.”
Usually, the size of the tips have “other significant factors” besides the quality of the food when it comes to pretty waitresses.
#16 Why is the story absurd? Why did you post it then? I think the story is not absurd at all when people immigrate to England and bring their racist value system with them. This was serious. It wasn’t just about food. They had their hours cut. They kept down because they weren’t Chinese.
Sonagi, I’m confused.
jay h, you sound like you’re channeling another Australian, Matt at Occidentalism, who hasn’t commented here in awhile.
C’mon. I’m American. But you show a lack of sophistication by bringing up nationality without need. A jab without reference. Either way, is what I’m saying wrong? Are my questions wrong? Do you have eyes? Are you sitting so high on your pedastool that you don’t even value the legs that hold it up?
I concur with Jay, why is the story absurd.
It was racist behaviour plain and simple. It was in breach of the laws specifically put into place to discourage racism in the workplace, plain and simple.
Frankly, I’m surprised at such a comment from you Sonagi or do you take the PC view of many that only whites can be racist.
What I don’t get is why they didn’t do them for breach of minimum wage rules too.
“Since when did they have tipping in the UK? That to me is the big revelation here.”
Since forever, the big difference is that it is not an automatic culturally ingrained response.
Generally tips are given for particularly good service or food. Not in lieu of a salary which should be paid by the restaurant.
“I never heard of the kitchen staff getting tips.”
It’s fairly common practise for some restaurants to pool tips and share them out at the end of the day, to ensure everybody gets a fair shake including back of house.
I didn’t say the behavior of the Chinese owners was not racist. Of course it was; the courts found them guilty of discrimination. I called the story absurd because of the management’s petty racism in denying non-Chinese access to the same food as Chinese staff and because of their incredible insistence that tips amounted to only 1% of the bill. Had the courts not found in the plaintiffs’ favor, then I would have been disgusted (see comment #3). I think Bum nails it in comment #5.
Sonagi, I think rather than have a discussion you are more interested in cheap blows to gain approval from Marmot friends. Watch how you change direction and dodge the issue by being vague and rude. And for someone that wants to be interpreted correctly, you are incredibly vague and ambiguous.
“jay h, you sound like you’re channeling another Australian, Matt at Occidentalism, who hasn’t commented here in awhile.”
Sonagi, I have been in hospital and can only type with one hand. I do not know Jay h, and he is not my sock puppet. Just making that clear in case people believe it to be so.
Reading comprehension ftw.
If you would go to the trouble to type that post with one hand, I believe you, Matt.
Sorry to hear you were in the hospital. Get well soon!
I’ve worked as a waiter in a British restaurant, where I was one of the few employees who were British citizens. So I’d like to add my ha’penny’s worth….
Arghaeri kr is right. Tips are a bonus for good behaviour, by both custom and employment/tax law, and 5% would be normal if you do tip (especially in a small industrial town like Ellesmere Port). Chefs sometimes got a cut, depending on which manager was around.
But the main thing to note is that the Daily Mail, Sonagi’s source, is a right-wing anti-immigrant rag best used for cat trays. This is not a “Foreign Devil” issue, it’s about Brits of different ethnicities. The restaurant owners are of Chinese origin, not necessarily citizenship, so I’m not sure it’s wise to draw conclusions about China’s global might from this. The managers’ names look like British Chinese from Hong Kong backgrounds.
Oh, and while I didn’t get free food in my workplace, I did get to eat leftovers from my Thai neighbour’s restaurant job! Mmmm…
#23 OK Sonagi, but you clearly said the story was absurd, not the behaviour of protagonists. In doing so you created an inference which was perhaps unintended.