{"id":20953,"date":"2020-04-22T16:36:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=20953"},"modified":"2020-04-23T15:38:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T14:38:09","slug":"victory-for-casual-workers-at-marriott-hotels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=20953","title":{"rendered":"Victory for casual workers at Marriott Hotels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite celebrated a key victory in the hospitality sector after Marriott International, which owns one of the leading hotel chains in the world, agreed to furlough all 1,500 of its casual workers at the 60 of its managed UK hotels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After workers organised themselves and challenged their employer through Unite, casual staff as well as the UK hotel chain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s permanent workforce will now benefit from the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s job retention scheme, where workers who are forced to stop working because of the coronavirus epidemic will have 80 per cent of their wages covered by the state. In exchange, companies must agree to keep their staff on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all started when Marriott Hotels sent a letter to more than 1,000 casual staff on April 8 saying that they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0098yet to determine their position\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on whether they could be furloughed citing \u00e2\u20ac\u0098significant cash flow issues\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as their justification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is despite government guidelines released on 26 March stating that they absolutely can be furloughed and paid at least 80 per cent of average annual earnings,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 explained Unite hospitality organiser Bryan Simpson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAs the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest and richest hotel group, it was inconceivably unfair for Marriott to discriminate between permanent and casual staff in this way and then to claim that it didn’t have the money to furlough some of their poorest and most precarious workers, particularly when 80 per cent would be covered by the taxpayer,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he noted.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members agreed and they banded together to organise through their trade union, many for the first time launching a collective campaign to demand 100 per cent wages including conference calls, online actions and a joint letter to the president of Marriott Europe,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Simpson added.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMarriott may claim that they were always going to furlough their casual workers but it was only after our members collectively demanded furloughment that they capitulated having made them wait a month for wages.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collective action<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casual staff at Marriott Hotels, many of whom had worked regular hours for the chain for many years, were overjoyed at the news and the result they achieved collectively after organising through Unite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen I saw that only contracted workers would be getting paid during the original designation of furloughed workers for the Marriott, I was thrown back a bit,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 explained Lance, a casual worker at Marriott Hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI thought that the Marriott didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about casual workers like me, despite government guidelines allowing all workers to be included,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to thank Unite Hospitality for supporting us with a platform that allowed us to share our voice collectively. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d also like to thank everyone who got involved in the union as we worked together to beat discriminatory behaviours from the Marriott.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lance\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s colleague Emma agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt was very disappointing to hear that casual workers were being treated differently to the contracted staff, but with the help of Unite Hospitality, Marriott have finally agreed to furlough all casual workers and reinforce their Spirit to Serve mission statement,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bHuge thanks to our union and my colleagues for helping us to achieve this.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the beginning<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite has said that this stunning victory is only a stepping stone in the fight to achieve more for workers at Marriott Hotels and throughout the hospitality sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhile this is a massive victory for our members at Marriott, our campaign for justice doesn’t stop here,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Simpson said, as he called on Marriott to top-up the remaining 20 per cent of wages, including Tronc (tips) and ensure full sick pay for those self-isolating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite officer with national responsibility for the hospitality sector Dave Turnbull agreed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and said there should be no going back to insecure working practices now rife in hospitality after the lockdown ends. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite has been campaigning strongly and lobbying the company hard \u00e2\u20ac\u0098to do the right thing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and put all it casual workers, who play such a key part in Marriott\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commercial success, onto the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coronavirus job retention scheme,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turnbull said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe welcome this announcement and will be monitoring how this works out in practice for our members in the coming days and weeks and will raise any problems with the Marriott management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe situation of these Marriott workers highlights the unnecessary and exploitative nature of zero hour contracts and casualised work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMany of our members worked regular hours for many years and legitimately had the right to permanent contracts. Once lockdown is lifted we will be demanding a new deal for hospitality workers which will include an end to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098zero hours\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis news from Marriott can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disguise the fact that the hotel and hospitality industry relies heavily on causal staff to keep the industry thriving and there may be some employers who are still not playing by the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf Unite discovers such cases, we will be raising them with respective managements, without fear or favour.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite celebrated a key victory in the hospitality sector after Marriott International, which owns one of the leading hotel chains in the world, agreed to furlough all 1,500 of its casual workers at the 60 of its managed UK hotels. After workers organised themselves and challenged their employer through Unite, casual staff as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1295,303,92,1320],"wps_subtitle":"Unite celebrates key hospitality victory as casual staff furloughed","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953"}],"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=20953"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20959,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20953\/revisions\/20959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}