Kathmandu, November 17:

The worker’s union at ND’s Ice Cream and Fast Food Industries Pvt Ltd is brazenly taking service charge on counter sale of bakery items but experts say what the workers are doing is a kind of monopoly and against the right of consumers.

“Only five star hotels can demand service charge. Fast-food outlets taking service charge is illegal. It’s only an issue between owner of a fast food joint and the workers there, we wonder why they are forcing consumers to pay extra 10 per cent,” Ram Chandra Simkhada, secretary of Consumer Rights Protection Forum Nepal said.

The dispute between the management and the workers’ union has been put on hold for the time being as All Nepal Hotel and Restaurant Worker’s Union (ANHRWU) has agreed to postpone its programme of using handwritten bills. “We have stopped taking service charge on bakery items,” said Dharma

Dev Kapadi, president of ANHRWU. “We even have stopped the plan to use handwritten bills for adding service charge on bakery items.”

Kapadi said they were trying to put a system in place. “Competition is all around, and almost all the bakeries are taking service charge,” he said adding that they too wanted to survive in the competition. But Simkhada said, “Service charge itself is illegal in fast-food joints and especially on counter sale items. It’s a monopoly.” ND’s management said that its joint was a self service fast-food eatery and it believed in no service charge.

“But we are under pressure,” management representatives said, adding that the union had verbally agreed to stop taking service charge. Kapadi said that the union would soon take a decision regarding service charge on bakery items.