MP backs ex-hotel staff angry about 'owed' wages

MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter ( centre with folded arms) with former hotel staff who say they are owed money

A Labour MP says she has written to a Victorian hotel after former staff complained about being owed pay.

Suffolk Coastal MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter said she had raised her "concerns" with the Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe, Suffolk, which has been operating for 126 years.

Riddell-Carpenter said she had met 13 former hotel employees who said they were owed wages.

Adam Pasinski, the hotel's general manager, told the BBC that he did not wish to talk or to offer a statement.

"Last week I met with 13 former employees of the Orwell Hotel who all have wages owed to them by the Orwell Hotel," Riddell-Carpenter told the BBC.

"These 13 former employees are owed a combined total of nearly £22,000.

"I suspect however, that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"I find this deeply concerning, and I have written to the Orwell Hotel letting them know my concerns, and that I will be giving my constituents my full support in their quest to receive the monies owed to them.”

MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter said she had raised her "concerns" with the Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe

Pauline McDermott, a former administration supervisor at the hotel, said she and several other people had begun employment tribunal claims.

Miss McDermott, 58, who lives in Felixstowe but is orginally from Sunderland, said she had left in 2023 after working at the hotel for about about seven years.

She said she had left after the "business was taken over" and felt she was owed about £860.

Miss McDermott said she had made an employment tribunal claim after an arbitration attempt was unsuccessful.

She said her employment tribunal claim was progressing through the system and other claims were at different stages.

Former kitchen supervisor Michael Pooley, 66, had also left in the summer of 2023.

He said he had made a similar claim for owed wages and holiday pay.

An employment tribunal judge had ruled in his favour earlier this year and awarded more than £3,000.

But he said he had yet to receive that money.

Both Miss McDermott and Mr Pooley said they hoped Riddell-Carpenter's intervention would help solve the dispute.