18th November 2021
Passionate Glasgow hospitality workers have come together to highlight negative impacts of COP26 on the industry and vowed to take action.
On the 9th November, over one hundred hospitality workers gathered in person and via zoom at the Golden Jubilee Hotel in Glasgow to celebrate their wins over the pandemic as well as the issues that have been highlighted by COP26, in order to organise action to demand change.
The ‘COP26 – Organising a Fair Hospitality City’ event was organised by the Unite Hospitality Glasgow Branch, which is the largest group of hospitality workers in Scotland. The aim of the event was to bring together hospitality workers from across Scotland and the world, in order to celebrate how workers have fought back against mistreatment during the pandemic, voice their feelings on the impacts of COP26 and develop organising strategies aimed at driving up the standards across the sector.
Bryan Simpson, the Industrial Organiser for the branch, said: “The Hospitality Industry is the lowest paid and most contractually insecure in the Scottish economy. As the eyes of the world were on Glasgow for COP26, we sought to use this exposure to highlight the state of the sector and launch our Fair Hospitality Charter which calls on employers and the Scottish Government to implement 10 changes including the real living wage, guaranteed hours, a proactive sexual harassment policy and 100% tips to dramatically improve the industry for the workers within it.”
The event was made up of four separate workshops, regarding the link between social and climate justice and how hospitality workers can have a say. The first workshop was considering how the government can implement changes for hospitality workers that would reduce the carbon footprint. This discussed cheaper and quicker public transport for hospitality workers, to lower emissions. Another workshop covered fair tips, which related to issues surrounding front of house staff’s tips being used to boost back of house staff’s wages. The International Trade Union Federation hosted another workshop on organising action for hospitality workers to campaign for better pay and conditions. The final workshop was regarding the issue of ‘greenwashing’, which refers to large companies using climate change as a reason to cut back and put employees at a disadvantage.
Liam McCusker, 22, from Glasgow, who attended the event, said: “I found out that ‘greenwashing’ leads to staff being overworked and overstressed. For example, many hotels let customers know they will not be cleaning rooms every day and say this is because they want to save water and electricity. However, this is because they want to employ less cleaning staff.”
He added: “In my experience, COP26 had a solely negative impact on the hospitality industry. Hotel chains were full yet there was a labour shortage. Workers were being asked to work more shifts, although they’re already on low pay and working in precarious conditions. The only positive I would take from it was that it has been easier to organise as COP26 has highlighted that the hospitality industry is struggling.”
*This report was firstly written and presented as a university assignment*
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