Serving up unity

This feature first appeared in the autumn edition of the Landworker magazine. You can view the latest issue here.

The UK’s hospitality industry is inextricably entwined with rural economies – in fact, rural tourism accounts for a whopping 70 to 80 per cent of all British tourism, and it adds around £14bn a year to England and Wales’ economic output.

Whether it’s work in pubs, restaurants, B&Bs or other hospitality venues, many rural communities are often dependent on the industry for job opportunities in areas where employment is otherwise scarce.

Research by the British Hospitality Association (BHA) found that in a league table of local authorities most dependent on hospitality employment, eight of the top 10 are in rural areas. In rural parts of Cumbria, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Wales, for example, hospitality jobs make up around a fifth or more of total employment.

But as central as hospitality is to rural economies, rural hospitality workers are having a tough time of it. Hospitality wages are low, but rural workers have the added challenge of paying the ‘rural premium’ – the extra costs associated with living in or commuting to rural areas.

What’s more, many of these workers work in relative isolation. Rural hospitality venues tend to be small, with only a handful of staff, sometimes as few as one or two. Unionising in these workplaces poses an extra challenge.

This was in part the inspiration behind Unite Hospitality’s brand-new East Anglia branch, which is hoping to bring together hospitality workers from across a predominantly rural region.

Launching in August, with already nearly 200 members, Unite East Anglia hospitality branch chair Gus (right) explained why. 

“With East Anglia being so rural, we had many isolated workers, already members of Unite, but who weren’t engaging with their local branch. They weren’t going to meetings, so they weren’t establishing a connection with the union. With the new hospitality branch, we’re hoping to re-engage those members. There’s been a lot of enthusiasm in joining the branch because these workers have realised, they’re not alone.”

Gus, who works as a chef in Norwich, highlighted the challenges of unionising in small venues.

“Many of them are independent, family-owned businesses where there’s often quite close relationships with the owners or managers,” he explained. “When there’s only one or two of you, often working alongside the owner, it’s hard to establish boundaries and to create that separate identity of yourself as a worker.”

Unite member Freddie (left), who works for a small independent café in Norwich, agrees.

“In some ways, working for independent businesses is great, but some of my friends have rightly described the experience as a ‘cult’ – management likes to think we’re all one big happy family,” Freddie notes.

“But the problem is management often tries to cut corners, and they take workers for granted.”

The East Anglia branch is now focusing on two of Unite Hospitality’s big campaigns – Fair Pay, Fair Tips and Get Me Home Safely, both of which are especially relevant to rural workers.

The tips campaign is an awareness-raising initiative to ensure workers, businesses and customers are aware of changes to tips legislation that came into effect on October 1. Workers must now keep all tips and service charges; tips must be shared fairly and transparently; and workers must receive their tips without delay by the end of the following month.

Freddie explained that while his employer has always given 100 per cent of tips to workers, working for a small business, he’s struggled to get management to comply with some of the legislation.

“The law now mandates the employer must have a written tips policy, and it must keep a written record of tips distributions. While we’ve always got our fair share of tips, management is refusing to keep records because they don’t see the need.”

Gus went on to highlight some of the other challenges rural hospitality workers face, including a chronic lack of affordable housing.

“It’s almost impossible to find affordable housing in rural areas, where the housing stock is low and rents are sky-high.

So many rural hospitality workers on low wages live in towns and cities and commute to the countryside,” Gus explained.

But not only is commuting expensive for these workers; it can also be unsafe.

“If you’re finishing a shift at one or two in the morning in a rural area, your options are especially limited, with poor public transport and expensive taxis,” Gus noted.

Which is why the East Anglia hospitality branch is especially keen to promote Unite’s Get Me Home Safely campaign, which aims to ensure workers finishing late or starting very early get paid transport to and from work.

Both Gus and Freddie are excited about the future of the East Anglia hospitality branch, already off to such a great start, and they’re urging workers in the region to join.

“A big part of working in hospitality is finding one low-paid job with poor conditions, hating it, and moving on to the next one, thinking it will be better,” Freddie noted.

“But if we unionise we don’t have to always move on. Instead of thinking, ‘This is c**p, I’ll find somewhere else, the mindset should be, ‘This is c**p – how can I change things?’ And the only way we can do that is collectively.”

Gus agreed. “For too long hospitality has had among the lowest levels of unionisation,” he said.

“It’s no coincidence that hospitality is also dominated by low pay and poor working conditions. But with a little
bit of organisation, we have the power to change things. Whether you work at a café in Norwich or at a rural pub in Norfolk, the East Anglia hospitality branch welcomes you.”

FIND OUT MORE

For more on Unite Hospitality East Anglia branch see their Facebook page.

If you’d like to start your own hospitality branch, contact
[email protected]

Photo by Peter Everard Smith