{"id":29853,"date":"2021-09-09T19:57:35","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T18:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=29853"},"modified":"2021-09-10T09:48:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T08:48:04","slug":"about-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=29853","title":{"rendered":"About Money"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n\n

A new play written by a Unite member lays bare the consequences of divide and rule tactics in the workplace – and reflects \u00e2\u20ac\u015bexactly what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in the real-life hospitality sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eliza Gearty<\/strong> (pictured below) wrote About Money<\/em>, which opened at Theatre503 in south London on September 6 and has now come to the end of its first run. Eliza has spent the past few years writing while supporting herself in various hospitality, charity fundraising and social care jobs. Now working as a relief support worker in Glasgow, she developed the ideas for her play directly from her own experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About Money<\/em> is the story of Shaun, a 17-year-old worker at a Glasgow branch of fictional fast food restaurant Tasty’s. With sole responsibility for supporting his eight-year-old sister Sophie, Shaun snaps up every shift his manager offers – even when it means entrusting Sophie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s care to his unreliable friend Eddie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We observe Shaun as he frets over workplace surveillance and gets pulled up by management over his \u00e2\u20ac\u015battitude\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. But however bad things get, Shaun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tragic flaw is his failure to see that he will always be weaker for as long as he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new colleague and love interest Hannah has a different attitude – having recognised that strike action down south got workers a pay rise. But with a manager who stresses that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bharmony in the workplace is very important\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, divide and rule tactics soon threaten to drive Shaun and Hannah apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unite national officer Dave Turnbull<\/strong> says such practices explored in the play \u00e2\u20ac\u015bsounds exactly like what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening at Pizza Express\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, where Unite is fighting a management policy of taking 50 per cent of waiters\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tips – under the guise of giving them to kitchen staff. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just playing off the waiting staff against the kitchen staff,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re organising the workers and trying to build solidarity with the back of house staff – we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying they should be paid more and not relying on tips.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eliza was inspired to write About Money<\/em> after travelling to London with fellow trade unionists in support of striking McDonald\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s workers in 2017. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI went to show solidarity,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she recalls. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe were there waiting for them at the demo in Westminster. I spoke to some of the people who were striking a lot of them were really young, a lot of them hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been in unions before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt felt like quite a momentous occasion. That was why I decided to explore one worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s situation.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McDonalds workers organised by the Bakers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Union later went on strike alongside Unite members at TGI Fridays<\/a> – where the union accused management of using customers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tips \u00e2\u20ac\u015bto subsidise their own poor pay policies\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. At Jamie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Italian, more than 70 former workers were awarded eight weeks of lost wages \u00e2\u20ac\u201c approximately \u00c2\u01412,000 each – after Unite successfully argued at an employment tribunal that the celebrity chef\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chain had failed to consult over redundancies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Emma Tracey, 24, who plays eight-year-old Sophie (pictured below), the play’s themes are close to home. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy dad had a young child when he was 23 and worked at McDonalds actually,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she says. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt was kind of the same situation as in the play – he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do anything else really. He got asked to leave school and then got asked to leave university. He worked his way and became a manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf trade unions for hospitality had been around in those days that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something my dad would have jumped on with bells on.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emma herself faced exploitation at a bar in Scotland where workers have since been organised by Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Glasgow hospitality branch. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was the only one under 21 but only just – I was 20. So I got paid \u00c2\u01415.60, when everybody else was on \u00c2\u01417.50 an hour. And because of that they slammed me with shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was on 10-hour shifts 14 days in a row, because I was the cheap labour. Two years later Unite Hospitality started [organising there] – and I was like \u00e2\u20ac\u0098ah, if that had been around when I was in Glasgow I would have jumped on that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re such an amazing thing because you never think, as a young person, in a hospitality job you just think – ah, this is just the perils of the job, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s low paid, you just have to say yes to everything. But even as a young person, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to live like that.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as many hospitality workers might not intend to stay long in the job, that should not stop them from organising for better pay and conditions, Emma says. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI know so many people who started a hospitality job and realise \u00e2\u20ac\u0098actually I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m good at this and I enjoy it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to just make it my part-time job – this is my job.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still under the circumstances of somebody in a part-time job, getting really bad hours – it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just feasible.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael McCardie, 23, who plays Shaun (pictured below), says \u00e2\u20ac\u015bjust about every single person at my school\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 worked in the fast food sector while studying. He hits out at \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthis idea of a job that fits around your school schedule, but then suddenly becomes your schedule. It was just abundant for everyone I grew up with\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Michael says: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe whole point of working is to provide for this life. But if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working all the time what life are you providing for? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what so interesting when Shaun meets Hannah, as much as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a cause he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fighting for, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a life experience he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not had – with a girl, or with something like a political cause. He just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have time to think about that because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just to think about work and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAll those things in the script definitely hit big for me. It needs to be told in a story, and I think this story really tells it well.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Alex Kampfner, whose women-led company 65% Theatre (the name reflects the proportion of women in theatre audiences – but not among playwrights and directors) with Eliza, says: \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it provides any answers as to what to do, it just shows what happens when a young guy who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have the means to look after his sister\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is being pulled in all these different directions.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playwright Eliza praises union campaigns such as Better than Zero – with which Unite Hospitality works closely in Scotland. But she says it is a huge challenge to organise a generation who have not grown up with unions in the public consciousness. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur generation came out of access to education, dragging yourself up\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 rather than making life better for you in the situation that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she says of the New Labour and austerity eras. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere’s a lot of indoctrination to unlearn.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Money is at Theatre503<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find out more about Unite Hospitality – and how you can join – here. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words and pictures by Conrad Landin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new play written by a Unite member lays bare the consequences of divide and rule tactics in the workplace – and reflects \u00e2\u20ac\u015bexactly what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in the real-life hospitality sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1394,303,888],"wps_subtitle":"New play written by Unite member Eliza Gearty shines the spotlight on exploitation in hospitality","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29853"}],"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=29853"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29890,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29853\/revisions\/29890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}