Ex-staff give ice cream café cold shoulder
Former workers claim wage issues and bullying were rife
Former employees at a popular Rutherglen ice cream parlour have turned up the heat on its bosses, claiming they’ve created a“toxic environment”.
A number of ex-workers at Cheeky Moo’s have spoken to the Reformer, insisting they experienced problems over wage slips and unpaid holiday entitlement.
Some former staff claim bullying was commonplace at the café and that they were threatened with the sack if they ever called in sick – even during the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
The parlour opened in 2018 and has proved popular, even scooping the Best Takeaway gong at last year’s British Takeaway awards.
However, according to exworkers, behind the scenes, the atmosphere was often frosty, with regular concerns raised around payslips, P60s and P45s.
Hannah BlackburnTurner, who spent eight months working at Cheeky Moo’s, took to social media to highlight her complaints, and her comments received a significant number of replies from other former employees claiming they had endured similar treatment.
Ms Blackburn-Turner, 23, said: “It feels like I’ve started a support group for people who have worked there.
“We were paid, but getting a payslip or any paperwork was always a nightmare. It was the same with a P60, it was never provided at the end of the year.
“It was disorganised in terms of paperwork and you’d get shouted at if you raised it as an issue.”
Ms Blackburn-Turner also alleges staff were regularly harangued by management if they were unwell.
She recalled: “I was in a car accident a week after starting and hurt my hand quite badly. I was told I would be sacked if I did not go into work.
“When I was there I dropped something because of my hand, and was screamed at for it.
“You’d be in there until three in the morning sometimes when we were short staffed, because after making orders and preparing for the next day, you’d then be onto cleaning the place.
“I’ve worked in bars so didn’t think about it too much, but it was unfair on some of the younger girls. The whole environment was toxic, and a lot of the staff were and still are teenagers in their first job. They don’t realise the rights they have and that they don’t need to be treated like that.”
Ms Blackburn-Turner added that any attempts to raise issues with the shop’s owners went nowhere.
In October 2018, an employment tribunal ruled that Cheeky Moo’s owed a former employee £67 in unpaid holiday pay.
Alessandra Soave left earlier this year and says she’s still waiting on holiday pay she is owed, as well as her P45 and P60.
She said: “It was like emotional blackmail at times. If you said you couldn’t make a shift you were told you were letting the other workers down and that they would struggle.
“I worked every Friday and every weekend for almost a year. I had to leave one day as I was actually being sick. When I came back on the Sunday I was told my absence was being treated as two days off rather than being sick.
“Since I left I’ve still had nothing, not a P45 or a P60 or anything. It’s a mess.”
Another employee told us he had not received a single payslip, P45 or P60, while a fourth worker, who asked not to be named, says she left after a couple of weeks because she was unhappy how employees were treated.
She added: “A lot of them, it’s their first job. There is absolutely a bullying culture there.”
Cheeky Moo’s did not respond to our repeated requests for comment.