BY BARRIE CLEMENT
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe there is a sector-wide strategy to keep unions at bay. “When I raise the issue of trade union access,” says Dave, “the response from one hotel is virtually word for word the same as the others.”
Sophie, of Unite’s hotel workers’ branch, works as a waitress in a five star hotel. She says that when new employees start they are told they are ‘allowed to be in a union’, but any attempt to engage in union activity can lead to dismissal – a clear breach of employment rights legislation.
Most hotel workers are migrants. They are taken on because employers think they are unaware of their rights and prepared to work ridiculous hours for rock bottom wages. By some estimates around 70 per cent of the workforce in London comes from overseas – although that could be an underestimate.
Senior hotel staff can be racist. One manager of an impossibly expensive restaurant in a five star hotel sidled up to a woman who was employed as a host and said, “It’s a bit ghetto in here tonight. Don’t
let any more black people in.” And then there is the unofficial apartheid among hotel staff. “You rarely see black people in front-facing roles,” says Sophie. “They are employed to wash dishes, clean floors but not to serve food.”
Compare all that with principle six of the UN charter which calls for ‘the elimination of discrimination in respect of employ- ment and occupation’. Waitresses are sometimes treated as if they are an item on the menu. “Some of the guests are lovely, but others want to hug us or touch us. You are supposed to put up with it,” says Sophie.
Ties One of the biggest bones of contention is the ‘black hole’ into which tips and service charges disappear. More than seven out of 10 waiting staff have no idea how tips are calculated or what percentage they get. Sophie estimates that management is ‘stealing’ around half of it.
In New York – at the heart of free- booting capitalism – conditions are far better. The self-same hotel groups which
preside over appalling employment practices in London have signed a collective bargaining agreement that delivers decent terms and conditions.
Room attendants in New York are paid £715 a week compared with £288 a week in London. The study, Unethical London points out that hotel workers in places like Buenos Aires and Manila are shown more respect.
Dave sees the report as part of an attempt to bring about a ‘turning point’ so that the disgraceful treatment of hotel workers is no longer tolerated. The long term aim is collective bargaining; the short term objective is agreement on a set of basic principles.
The report delivers a stark indictment of the luxury hotel chains, “Your actions have made London in the 21st century one of the most unethical tourist destinations in the world. You have brought shame on our industry, our profession and our city and we intend to call you to account.”
They have been warned. S OF SHAME View the Unethical London report HERE 17 uniteWORKS Autumn 2016
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