{"id":22835,"date":"2020-07-21T16:08:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T15:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=22835"},"modified":"2020-07-21T16:17:16","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T15:17:16","slug":"save-our-jobs-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=22835","title":{"rendered":"‘Save our Jobs’ call"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

Dozens of workers in the hospitality industry, Unite members, stood together in socially distanced solidarity at a pair of demonstrations today (July 21) to call on employers and the government to save their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Unite demonstrations were staged in defence of hospitality workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one in London, where workers from the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotels and restaurants gathered outside Parliament to deliver a letter to the tourism minister Nigel Huddleston MP. In the letter, they’ve asked for a more formal video conference meeting to talk about the challenges facing the sector from a worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile a simultaneous protest was held in Belfast, where hospitality workers there gathered outside the Stormont Parliament Buildings to press their case and delivered a letter to economy minister Diane Dodds also asking for a meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hospitality industry, including hotels, pubs, restaurants, and other venues, has been especially hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown, but Unite has highlighted that employers in the sector have abused the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s furlough scheme and have precipitated a wave of unnecessary redundancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to UniteLIVE after today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demonstration in London, Unite national officer Dave Turnbull hailed the demo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s turnout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe had about sixty Unite hospitality members turn out to the socially distanced protest. They were mostly hotel and restaurant workers, including from Firmdale, Millennium and Hilton Hotel chains as well as from the Casual Dining Group and Pret-a-Manger, all of whom are either under threat of redundancy or have already been made redundant,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese workers feel that employers have cheated the government out of money by abusing the furlough scheme and have subsequently cheated them out of their jobs.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo far the government has only heard from the hospitality industry from the perspective of employers and that needs to change. We believe it is vital that the tourism minister hear the perspective of workers and how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been treated first-hand.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unite regional hospitality organiser Neil Moore agreed as a he highlighted the situation in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite has commissioned research which indicates that between ten and fifteen thousand hospitality workers in Northern Ireland face the threat of redundancy in the coming weeks,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhile nearly every whim of business owners have been central to the plans to reopen this industry \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the voice of workers has been totally excluded. We have genuine concerns for safety and for our industry.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the hospitality protest in Belfast, workers in the industry were joined by private and public sector workers in solidarity, Moore explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhether you work in a factory or a hospital \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you like to go out for a meal and enjoy yourself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hospitality workers are key to that,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOther workers who are starting to go out and socialise again are asking us which bars and pubs have been decent to workers throughout this, they want to know where to avoid.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turnbull went on to explain how Unite believes employers in the industry have abused the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s furlough scheme and the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe furlough scheme is meant to incentivise employers to keep their workforce on their payrolls until the economic situation improves and demand picks up. But far too many hotels, restaurants and other hospitality businesses have made or plan to make redundancies long before the furlough scheme ends in October. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re telling the government, ‘Well now that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re allowed to re-open we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve brought back one-third of our workforce.’ That shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the story \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the story should be why have they prematurely sacked two-thirds of their workforce?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite is now calling for a number of measures to protect workers in hospitality, including an extension of the job retention scheme with sector specific flexibilities for hospitality, as well as 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite is also calling for the National Living Wage to be increased to \u00c2\u014110 an hour with no age restrictions and for the government to finally legislate to give workers 100 per cent of tips and service charge payments, as promised in October 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, Unite has also urged the industry to create sustainable business models with a focus on retaining and upskilling staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Dozens of workers in the hospitality industry, Unite members, stood together in socially distanced solidarity at a pair of demonstrations today (July 21) to call on employers and the government to save their jobs. Two Unite demonstrations were staged in defence of hospitality workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one in London, where workers from the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotels and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,1],"tags":[1295,303],"wps_subtitle":"Unite hospitality members stage socially distanced demos in defence of their jobs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22835"}],"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=22835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22842,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22835\/revisions\/22842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}