{"id":12532,"date":"2017-06-06T11:28:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T10:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12532"},"modified":"2017-06-06T14:47:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T13:47:37","slug":"12532-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12532","title":{"rendered":"Wake up and smell the coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Low paid hospitality workers today (Tuesday June 6) protested outside the Grand Connaught rooms in relation to the low pay and exploitative practices in their sectors and told hospitality bosses to \u00e2\u20ac\u0098wake up and smell the coffee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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The Unite members took their message direct to key industry leaders attending the British Hospitality Association’s (BHA) annual hospitality and tourism summit at the venue in London.<\/p>\n

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They highlighted that the \u00c2\u0141900 ticket price being charged for the event is equivalent to the monthly take home pay of a waiter or room attendant being paid the so-called national living wage of \u00c2\u01417.50 an hour.<\/p>\n

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Unite, which represents thousands of UK hospitality workers, is calling for a real conversation in hospitality to tackle the problems of low pay, zero hours contracts and the bullying culture that are rife in the industry. These are the key contributing factors to the industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ongoing recruitment, retention and skill shortage crisis.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe industry keeps harping on about changing the public perception of hospitality in order to attract young people to fill vacant positions. Yet it has done nothing to tackle the causes of it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Rhys McCarthy, Unite national officer for the services sector.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe problem is not just that people perceive these jobs to be low paid and exploitative. The problem is that this is very much the reality and that is what needs to change,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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High staff turnover is causing a productivity crisis in the hospitality industry, costing the industry around \u00c2\u0141274m a year \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a situation set to get worse post-Brexit.<\/p>\n

\"Hospitality<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNow faced with a staffing and skills crisis without the flow of EU workers, rather than tackling the deep-seated problems around low pay and exploitation, the industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest gimmick is to call for a so-called barista visa to keep the tap of cheap labour flowing,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Rhys.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPlans for a two-year barista visa for low-skilled workers with even less rights will exacerbate the problems around exploitation, while the industry continues to rake in multi-billion pound profits,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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The hospitality industry has relied on EU free movement as a constant flow of cheap labour to exploit. The industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s calls for a so-called two-year \u00e2\u20ac\u0098barista\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 visa to attract young non-UK nationals, post-Brexit has been slammed by Unite as way to keep wages low and continue their exploitative practices.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe real conversation in hospitality needs to be around how the industry tackles the low pay, zero hours and exploitative culture which has been allowed to take root over many decades, because without a commitment to improve pay and working conditions nothing will change,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Rhys.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCharging \u00c2\u0141900 a ticket for this event, which is what a minimum-waged waiter earns in a month, shows just how out-of-touch the BHA is,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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Later in the day Unite will convene an alternative event in order for waiting staff, chefs, housekeepers and others to share their experiences. This event will endorse Unite’s Hospitality Workers Charter, launched in Scotland, two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s open hostility to trade unions also needs to end so that we can start working together to make work better for everyone in hospitality \u00e2\u20ac\u201c not just those that can afford to attend the BHA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s event,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Rhys.<\/p>\n

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The UK hospitality industry is the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fourth biggest employer, employing over 3m people and represents about a tenth of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economic wealth, equivalent to \u00c2\u0141143bn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Low paid hospitality workers today (Tuesday June 6) protested outside the Grand Connaught rooms in relation to the low pay and exploitative practices in their sectors and told hospitality bosses to \u00e2\u20ac\u0098wake up and smell the coffee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.     The Unite members took their message direct to key industry leaders attending the British Hospitality Association’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[303,23,389],"wps_subtitle":"Hospitality workers protest over low pay ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12532"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12540,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions\/12540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}