{"id":19421,"date":"2019-11-12T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T08:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=19421"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:54:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:54:53","slug":"living-wage-premier-inn-demos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=19421","title":{"rendered":"‘Why not us?’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite is gearing up to mark Living Wage Week with demos outside two London hotels on Wednesday (November 13) as the union seeks to highlight low pay in the hospitality sector.<\/p>\n

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The demos, organised by Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotel workers branch, will take place at two Premier Inn hotels in Holborn and in Islington in the capital from 1pm.<\/p>\n

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Despite being the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest hotel chain, raking in substantial operating profits of \u00c2\u0141498m last year, Premier Inn pays most of its staff the minimum wage of just \u00c2\u01418.21 an hour.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Alison Brittan, the ex-banker chief executive of Whitbread, which owns the Premier Inn chain, can make up to \u00c2\u01412.3m a year if she achieves her targets \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 136 times more than her minimum waged staff.<\/p>\n

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This week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demos come as the Living Wage Foundation on Monday (November 11) hiked the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098real\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Living Wage rate to \u00c2\u01419.30 an hour, with the London Living Wage being set at an even higher \u00c2\u014110.75 an hour.<\/p>\n

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Although more than 200,000 workers have benefited from their employers signing up to pay the voluntary Living Wage, there are still more than 5m workers who are paid less than this wage, which the Foundation calculates is the minimum needed to keep up with rising living costs.<\/p>\n

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The government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mandatory minimum wage, cynically rebranded the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098National Living Wage\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 falls far below the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098real\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Living Wage, and is not linked to living costs. For those over the age of 25, the rate is now just \u00c2\u01418.21 an hour; for those under age 25, this falls even further to \u00c2\u01417.70 an hour.<\/p>\n

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Unite has spoken to a number of hospitality workers who barely eke out a living on the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

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Lise*, who works in London as a night receptionist at one of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most popular hotel chains explained how she was initially hired to do security, minimal cleaning and breakfast set-up.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn reality I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m expected to clean the entire ground floor, from doors to floors, restaurant and bar,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m even made to serve at the bar and do housekeeping duties too. Soon we may even be made to clean the toilets.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still waiting for my staff uniform,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Lise went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been over a year. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever get it and on my wage I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to buy new clothes to work in. For all of that I get \u00c2\u01419.86 an hour. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not enough to live on in London.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Harry*, who worked for five months at a Holiday Inn, said he had a very similar experience to Lise.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was hired as a front desk receptionist, but ended up doing everything, from serving at the bar and restaurant to going into rooms and setting up beds,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt was a ridiculous workload. But, it was my experience of working there every single day.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI did all of this for a measly \u00c2\u01417.86 an hour.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Dave*, a hotel maintenance technician, reports similarly heavy workloads.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy job involves keeping three hotels with roughly 200 rooms, two pubs and a meeting building in good decorative and working order,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m paid just \u00c2\u01418.66 an hour \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so I know all about how hard it is to live on low wages.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI feel that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get anywhere near the wage we deserve for all the hard work we do.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Lise, Harry and Dave are among the many hundreds of workers who are joining together under a new Unite London and Eastern branch campaign called \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Why Not Us?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

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The campaign aims to put pressure on low wage employers in Canary Wharf, Heathrow and the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospitality businesses to get on board with the real Living Wage.<\/p>\n

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Speaking ahead of Wednesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Premier Inn demo, Unite national officer for hospitality Dave Turnbull said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re calling time on low pay. Workers in Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospitality sectors are poorly paid, over worked and undervalued. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for this to change.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur message to Premier Inn senior management is simple — stop dragging your feet and pay your staff a real Living Wage. Premier Inn ought to be a leader; instead it is a follower of the very worst \u00e2\u20ac\u0098race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 practices.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite has urged all those who can to join us on Wednesday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (November 13) demo at Premier Inn Holborn, WC1R 4PS and Premier Inn Islington, N1 OPS, both from 1pm.<\/p>\n

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*Names changed to protect privacy<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite is gearing up to mark Living Wage Week with demos outside two London hotels on Wednesday (November 13) as the union seeks to highlight low pay in the hospitality sector.   The demos, organised by Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotel workers branch, will take place at two Premier Inn hotels in Holborn and in Islington in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[23,1256],"wps_subtitle":"Unite hospitality workers demand a Living Wage ahead of Premier Inn demos","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19421"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24870,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19421\/revisions\/24870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}