Ishan Costello, Manchester and Salford Socialist Party
Dismissed workers gathered outside burger chain Super Awesome Deluxe (SAD)’s Manchester Northern Quarter branch on 8 March, alongside Unite the Union officials and supporting activists.
We spoke to three of the sacked workers about their awful treatment at the hands of SAD and its owners’ other enterprise Almost Famous (AF). The liquidation of AF in January resulted in a failure to pay over 100 sacked employees £200,000 worth of tips, holidays, and notice pay.
Two workers we spoke to had worked at AF’s Withington branch until being notified of its closure in October with just five days’ notice. They were offered work for SAD; having been told they’d be working front of house for £13.50/hour, they were instead paid minimum wage and asked to do back-of-house work. To this end, the owners attempted to make them sign documents that falsely claimed they had been trained to work in kitchens.
“When we started working there, they hired a girl to do all their social media. They lied to her as well! She actually ended up not doing much social media – she did what we did. They’re still using her content to promote the business, though.”
Upset at how they had been misled and poorly treated, they left SAD, returning to work at two of AF’s other branches, where they worked extremely taxing and lengthy overtime shifts through Christmas and January.
One morning, as they were getting ready for work, they received a message informing them of the business’s liquidation, telling them not to come into work. Another worker said “I found out on social media […] about half an hour before getting an official email saying I’d been sacked”.
Because the workers had ‘moved’ following the closure of the branch, despite having over two years’ service for AF, they were told they were entitled to no redundancy pay. They also discovered they had lost out on employer pensions contributions.
Workers pointed out that the owner lives in a multi-million pound house in Didsbury, whilst employees left penniless are forced to claim benefits: “We don’t want money from the taxpayer, we want it from the owners”.
At the suggestion of support in the form of ‘review bombing’ and solidarity boycotts, the workers asked that supporting activists continue to spread the word: “Don’t give them any money until we’ve got ours!.. Even after the excitement of [a demo like] this happens, for everyone else, once it’s over, it’s over, and they can just get on with their lives. But remember that just because everyone won’t be talking about this next week doesn’t mean it isn’t still happening to us.”
