{"id":22795,"date":"2020-07-17T13:43:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T12:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=22795"},"modified":"2020-07-17T13:43:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T12:43:27","slug":"unite-govt-must-step-up-to-the-plate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=22795","title":{"rendered":"Unite: Govt must \u00e2\u20ac\u0098step up to the plate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tourism minister, Nigel Huddleston MP, is being invited to join London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospitality workers at their socially distanced Save our Jobs<\/em><\/strong> demo outside the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on Tuesday July 21, to find out first-hand the effects the Covid-19 pandemic has had on them and their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

The demo comes with Unite, the union representing the workers, warning that the knee-jerk, mass redundancies sweeping the sector are storing up a skills shortage crisis for the future.<\/p>\n

At midday workers from the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotels and restaurants, wearing face coverings and in uniform, will hand in a letter to the tourism minister asking for a more formal video conference meeting to talk about the challenges facing the sector from a worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective.<\/p>\n

Unite is urging the government and industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s major employers to step up to the plate and act responsibly to save jobs, invest in skills and employee development programmes through the creation of more sustainable business models.<\/p>\n

Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s key demands on government include: extension of the job retention scheme with sector specific flexibilities for hospitality; specific measures to protect the jobs of over 25s, instead of the focus being exclusively on allowing employers to access schemes for under 25s, which is open to abuse; national Living Wage increased to \u00c2\u014110 an age with no age restrictions; government to finally legislate to give workers 100 per cent of tips and service charge payments, as promised in October 2019; creation of sustainable business models with a focus on retaining and upskilling staff.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are urging the tourism minister to come and meet with hospitality workers to talk about the effects the Covid-19 pandemic has had on them and their families first-hand,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 explained Dave Turnbull Unite national officer for hospitality.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorkers in the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s restaurants, pubs, bars and hotels have faced months of uncertainty due to the state-imposed lockdown. Now if their pay and terms and conditions aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t being slashed, the mass redundancies sweeping the sector are threatening to throw tens of thousands of them onto the scrap heap.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need the government and the industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s major employers to step up to the plate and act responsibly to save the UK hospitality sector with measures designed to save people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jobs and develop their skills,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

Unite believes the Chancellor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emergency budget, including the \u00c2\u014110 a head meal deal, VAT cut and \u00c2\u01411,000 job retention bonus has offered a glimmer of hope to the industry, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not enough.<\/p>\n

Turnbull continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is shameful that some of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wealthiest hotel chains from Holiday Inn owner, IHG, to the luxury Marriot and Millennium\u00c2\u00a0have happily pocketed millions from the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s furlough scheme, only to shed thousands of jobs as soon as they are asked to make national insurance and pension contributions again.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government must now demand that hospitality bosses do more for its workforce, stop the redundancies and attacks on pay, terms and conditions in exchange for an extension to the job retention scheme.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

By Chantal Chegrinec <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite is urging the government and industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s major employers to step up to the plate and act responsibly to save jobs, invest in skills and employee development programmes through the creation of more sustainable business models.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,1],"tags":[303,122,1309,159,44],"wps_subtitle":"Hospitality workers invite tourism minister to hear what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really happening","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795"}],"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=22795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22797,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22795\/revisions\/22797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}