The woman, who worked in catering for 12 years, was speaking out about the treatment of staff at the NI Assembly
A former worker at Stormont has spoken out about the “awful” treatment of catering staff by MLAs and officials at the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The woman, who said she left her job “essentially” due to the treatment of staff at Stormont, claimed MLAs would refuse to go and get their own food and demanded staff bring it to their private rooms at the Assembly building.
She also described how some would have refused to pay for their meals on time, leaving staff members to “scramble to kind of defend the charge and force them to pay”.
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The whistleblower was speaking to the Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster on Monday.
She said that if staff members didn’t answer the phone within two rings to calls from politicians, they would face a reprimand from senior officials and “an investigation”.
The woman, who worked in catering for 12 years, was describing the treatment of staff at the Assembly up to 2020.
“The staff are overworked,” she said. “On certain days we would have got phone calls down from the private rooms and they would have ordered something over the phone, from the counter, you know.
“I would have had to leave my desk to go and get a chef to make this to then take it to the till, and then someone had to take it up to their room, and someone had to go and collect it. You send them up the bill and then the other girl in the office was left to chase those bills for what could be a cup of tea, or what could be a full lunch. Nine times out of 10 you were chasing them for money and they argued with it.”
She continued: “You and your colleagues were left to scramble to kind of defend the charge and force them to pay for what they ought to be paying for on the day. It was very stressful because it’s a busy, busy turnover and it annoyed you when there was maybe four or five staff to get one meal ready, or one sandwich.”
She described management as “tough on us”.
The whistleblower continued: “All our phone calls had to be answered within two rings. Two rings, and there were three phones. Sometimes you were on your own, and it just wasn’t possible.
“There was an instruction that you must answer phones within two rings – two rings, honestly. It’s not possible when there’s one person and three phones and you’re running out the front to try and get a sandwich for somebody that’s ordered it.
“You’re out the front door, you get pulled out because there’s a big queue and you have to get on the till – and then that’s just in the canteen. It’s, you know, the member’s dining room as well. It was full on.”
She said if the phone wasn’t answered within two rings, staff would be told off and an “investigation” carried out.
“They would have known you didn’t answer it – I don’t know how,” she said.
“It was awful,” she added. “We were institutionalized. I knew no better. I worked until I had my first child and then I was lucky enough to be able to stay at home. That was my first big job, and I thought it was normal to be treated like that.”
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