Hospitality culture still problematic
Hostile hospitality? A survey finds decent work conditions are still missing from too many menus,
ALMOST three years after Covid19 hit New Zealand, the hospitality sector is slowly rebuilding. Widespread business closures, limited opening hours and an inability to attract workers have drawn widespread media attention and renewed calls for increasing the number of migrant workers allowed into New Zealand.
The Government has also set out its goals for regenerative tourism (encouraging visitors to leave a destination better than when they arrived) and hospitality (fostering a sustainable and attractive industry that raises the reputation of the sector). It has also opened debates about a ‘‘reset’’ of immigration policy.
Our survey of 400 hospitality workers, taken immediately before the pandemic struck, had already shown concerning levels of noncompliance with basic employment rights within the industry. The survey results point to longstanding issues in the sector.
Our report has also informed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s draft tourism transformation plan, which has just been released for consultation. Hopefully, by correctly understanding the true origins and nature of the problems, the hospitality industry can identify lasting solutions.
These findings describe a sector with a significant number of employers who are not meeting common expectations for decent work. This minority is dragging down the overall image of the industry and undermining good hospitality employers.
The first message from the survey is that while current issues in the sector are acute, they are not new. Covid has simply amplified them.
Crucially, it is important to draw a distinction between issues around migrant labour and the low pay and poor conditions the survey highlights.
The New Zealand hospitality sector has always struggled to find local workers. As a result it has been highly dependent on migrant labour. But the poor pay and conditions so clearly exposed by the survey were not common before the 1980s.
Before the 1980s, hospitality pay and conditions were contained within industrywide collective agreements, enforced by a powerful union that had strong relationships with the state and employers.
While one couldn’t argue exploitation never occurred during this period, the system provided migrant and local hospitality workers with concrete minimum pay rates, extensive penalty rates and protected conditions.
However, the free market revolution of the 1980s and 1990s strongly encouraged individual contracting and removed compulsory unionism.
Hospitality workers were now exposed to downward pressure on wages and conditions, without the protection of a powerful union or collective agreements. From this point on, increasing casualisation, falling wages and increasing numbers of exploitation cases have come to define the sector.
So what needs to change?
Firstly, the Government needs to increase pressure on poor employers and reward good employers. Increasing the resources of the Labour Inspectorate will enable a more rigorous enforcement of labour laws.
At the same time, customers can be engaged though initiatives like the New Zealand Restaurant
Association’s Hosopocred scheme. This will require an employer to apply and provide evidence for accreditation, will help identify good employers and allow customers to make a choice to support them.
Secondly, there needs to be widespread support for the Government’s proposed fair pay agreements.
These could result in significant changes in the workplace, including lifting employment standards.
Finally, those involved in the hospitality sector must strengthen the tripartite approach between unions, employer groups and the Government that is driving the proposed industry transformation plan. — theconversation.com
David Williamson is a senior lecturer in the School of Hospitality and Tourism, Candice Harris a professor of management and Erling Rasmussen a professor at Auckland University of Technology.