IN July 1979, chambermaids at the Grosvenor Hotel in London’s Mayfair went on strike after 30 of their colleagues were sacked and evicted from their accommodation.
It was only the third instance of strike action by hotel workers in Britain since the Second World War, and the most recent – until last weekend. On Sunday, workers at the Village Hotel by Pacific Quay in Glasgow walked out.
Supported by their union, Unite Hospitality, these predominantly young and predominantly female workers took the brave action to stand up to their employer – a company ultimately owned by Blackstone Inc, which calls itself “the world’s largest alternative asset manager”.
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Unite claims workers are paid the national minimum wage but not the real living wage. It says younger workers are paid as little as £10, less than workers at other hotels in the chain.
Age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, and yet an exemption to this allowing the minimum wage to be set at different bands for those aged under 21 has been consistently taken advantage of by shoddy employers looking for cheap labour. It’s exploitation through and through.
You don’t get a discount on your rent just for being under 21. You don’t get a discount on your groceries just for being under 21.
Thanks to the Scottish Greens, under-22s do get free bus travel in Scotland but with many workers in hospitality working shifts finishing in the wee hours with nary a bus to be found, they’re certainly not getting a discount on their taxis home just for being under 21.
One of the brave striking workers who spoke at the picket on Sunday is 18 and a new father. He claims he wasn’t offered paternity leave to spend time with his newborn child and is expected to live off just £10.42 an hour.
That’s more than £2 an hour less than what the Real Living Wage Foundation calculates is the minimum needed to survive the cost of living.
The UK Labour Government did commit to removing these discriminatory pay bands in its General Election manifesto and took small steps to close the gap for young workers when setting the minimum wage in April this year.
But for them to have been in government for more than a year now and this wage discrimination to still be legal is an absolute disgrace.
Labour have also still yet to confirm if apprentices will be protected from wage discrimination when they finally get around to fixing this.
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Apprentices in the UK can be paid as little as £7.55 an hour for their work by employers, and it’s critical that they too are paid a real living wage (something the Scottish Greens secured in government for apprentices working in Scotland’s public sector). None of this excuses predatory behaviour from an employer though.
As of last year, Blackstone said it had assets under management of more than $1 trillion, an incomprehensible amount of money, and makes Village Hotels’ refusal to pay its workers the 39p an hour more that they’re asking for – the difference between the minimum wage and the real living wage – just as incomprehensible.
It’s little wonder that 100% of Unite members at the hotel in Glasgow voted for strike action on a turnout of 81%.
I was genuinely inspired by the workers at Sunday’s picket. All too often, the trade union movement can be dominated by older men – many of whom do excellent work for the movement.
But Sunday’s picket showed that young people, particularly the young women and the young migrant workers, are not just the future of our trade unions, they’re making history right now.
As a young members’ officer and shop steward for my own trade union branch, I know that all too often young people can be put off joining trade unions because they don’t see people who look like them in them.
Unite Hospitality consistently proves that our diversity is our strength, and shows young people across the country that there’s absolutely a space for them in the movement.
I was also inspired because the fight of these workers is so much bigger than just one hotel. The significance of these young workers taking on the world’s biggest alternative asset management company can’t be overstated.
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Blackstone has investments everywhere you turn, including Israel. It even owns a number of the purpose-built student accommodation blocks popping up left, right and centre across Scotland.
In 2019 it was accused by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing of contributing to the global housing crisis by imposing an array of heavy fees and charges for ordinary repairs. Blackstone denied the claims.
It is clearly among the biggest and most powerful companies on the planet. But workers in Glasgow are taking it on – and my money’s on the workers any day of the week.
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