An Honest Burgers in central London
(Picture: Colum Mackey)Honest Burgers has threatened to ‘fire and rehire’ its workers if they do not accept the loss of paid breaks.
The popular chain, which has 34 restaurants in London, said introducing paid breaks during Covid was “frankly a mistake”, and it could no longer afford the £600,000-a-year cost.
In an internal briefing, seen by the Standard, the company told shop-floor workers that it wanted to make breaks unpaid but would increase hourly pay as compensation.
However some workers at the chain have called the change “an insult” and claim it would leave them worse off.
Those who refuse to voluntarily accept the new terms face being fired and then rehired.
The document, sent to general managers last week, states: “Our only option where people did not agree to the change would be to go through a process of dismissal from the current terms and then immediately offer to re-hire on the revised contractual terms.” It states this could be “enforced” as a “last resort”.
One employee told the Standard: “It feels like a slap in the face. Honest likes to claim it’s a family, but this isn’t how you treat family.”
Another member of staff added: “I feel let down, like a lot of my hard work goes for absolutely nothing. I feel like Honest doesn’t fully care for us employees, when we do everything to get the sales and make the customers and the management happy.”
The new contract is due to come into effect on April 1, to coincide with the statutory increase of the National Minimum Wage.
While some could benefit from the change, such as part-timers who do not work enough hours to be entitled to a break on-shift, others believe they will lose out as the increase in wages is not as high as the loss of payment for breaks.
The new terms would mean a waiter or chef at the chain would be paid £10.45 an hour - but this is only 3p more than the new required minimum for over-23s of £10.42 an hour.
A shift manager would see an hourly increase of 70p to £12.20 an hour, while head chefs and sous chefs would see an increase of £1 an hour to £15 and £13 respectively.
The company said it believed the change was being “broadly well received”, and that a wave of cost increases limited its ability to otherwise afford pay increases.
A spokesperson said: “This benefit is one that is quite unusual in the sector and we are removing it in order to be able to afford higher pay rates for our team members, with increases of 6%-10% for the roles not directly affected by the 10% national minimum wage increase.
“We are making every effort to be fair to our people and to ensure that the majority of our team members will be better off.
“These proposed changes have been broadly well received and we therefore expect to reach mutual agreement with the vast majority of our people.”
