Tips and dearness allowance: customer-paid tips were not an employer substitute for allowance, so the award stood.

Tips collected in a hotel are not employer-funded payments and cannot be treated as a substitute for dearness allowance, because they represent amounts intended by customers for distribution to staff. They may, however, be considered when fixing the quantum of dearness allowance. On the facts stated, there was no basis to interfere with the Industrial Tribunal's award on the footing that the Tribunal had ignored the tipping arrangement, and the challenge to modification of the allowance failed.

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Issues: Whether the Industrial Tribunal's award of dearness allowance to the hotel workers called for interference on the ground that tips received through customers were being distributed by the management.

Analysis: Tips collected in an important hotel are not a payment made by the employer out of its own pocket, but a transfer of what customers intend to be distributed to the staff. Such receipts cannot be treated as an employer-funded substitute for dearness allowance, though they may be borne in mind while fixing the quantum. There was no basis to hold that the Tribunal had ignored this circumstance so as to warrant appellate interference.

Conclusion: The award of dearness allowance was not liable to be modified on the ground of tips, and the challenge failed.

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