{"id":9612,"date":"2016-08-24T13:20:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T12:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9612"},"modified":"2016-08-24T16:47:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:47:01","slug":"things-have-got-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9612","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Things have got to change\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospitality workers protested with outrage over the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098unethical\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 working conditions of the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotel industry yesterday evening, following the launch of Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard-hitting report Unethical London<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite hotel and hospitality worker members held the demonstration to mark the launch of the report which exposes London as one of the most \u00e2\u20ac\u0098unethical\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tourist destinations in the world in its exploitation of workers through low pay and poor working practices.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One hotel worker, who is 56 years old, said she attended the protest because she feels undervalued and overworked in her job and is close to breaking point.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost amusing that someone is paying \u00c2\u0141800 for a hotel room, but the person who cleans the room is only paid \u00c2\u01415,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI feel like giving up, to tell you the truth. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very hard work, changing the beds and you must do it very fast and you must give quality, so sometimes it is impossible to finish the work in a good way because it is too much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe hotel won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t employ more workers because they want to save money, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a terrible circle,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The protest began underneath the London Eye at around 5 pm yesterday (August 24), and moved along to a Premier Inn on Belvedere Road, where protesters chanted and sang for rights and respect into the main lobby and far down the road.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The demonstration stopped outside the Premier Inn to expose its anti-union practices. Despite being the largest part of multi-national hospitality company, Whitbread \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who will soon become part of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) pledging respect for workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Premier Inn does not recognise its employees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights to unionise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Respect <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ewa Jasiewicz, speaking for the Unite hotel worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s branch, believes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outrageous that this can happen and wants to see hotel chains like Premier Inn start to respect its workforce.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPremier Inn refuses to allow union access, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recognise collective bargaining, and are not respecting worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights to organise, to have collective representation or a collective voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere are so many hotel chains like this and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to let Whitbread and Premier Inn get the Ethical Trading Initiative kite mark and the respect from other industry players when they actually don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t respect worker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite national officer Rhys McCarthy said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorkers in this industry deserve better, they deserve a living wage and they deserve not to be bullied or worked to death. Things have got to change.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hospitality workers from different parts of the industry joined the protest in solidarity with hotel workers, as they too are facing exploitative working conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One protester, who works as a waitress in a fine dining London restaurant, said:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe hospitality sector is the fourth largest industry in the UK, but it mainly employs migrant workers and is the sector that is the least unionised, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to keep existing rights, let alone ask for improvements of rights within the workplace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI believe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the only Unite member where I work, the other people I work with are mainly migrants so they might not have been in the country for that long and maybe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand what the union is or what it can provide for us,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI think unions should be recognised in every workplace, as soon as an employee signs a contract, those rights should be set out by the employer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt should be law that every new employee, in every industry, should be given the option to become a member of a union when they sign their contract \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that would be a step forward.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dave Turnbull, Unite regional officer, said it was important the hotel industry sees that despite their refusal to work with the union, Unite will continue to support hospitality workers until their rights are respected.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going away and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re determined to make London an ethical city,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Dave said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis will require hotels to recognise trade unions, to establish collective bargaining and to have a dialogue with us.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hospitality workers protested with outrage over the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098unethical\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 working conditions of the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hotel industry yesterday evening, following the launch of Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard-hitting report Unethical London.   Unite hotel and hospitality worker members held the demonstration to mark the launch of the report which exposes London as one of the most \u00e2\u20ac\u0098unethical\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tourist destinations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[92,23,536],"wps_subtitle":"Give London hotel workers what they deserve","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9614,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions\/9614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}