By Giovannino again...

So who owns this place?

Yesterday the Chinese economy slumped. Billions of Pounds, Dollars, Euros and Yuan were wiped off the values of companies and individual stock portfolios. Even Warren Buffett lost out. Crowds of conventional economists, Finance Ministers and journalists could be observed huddling together, quietly chanting “La la la, not listening, not listening, nothing to see here …”

All I thought was “Shit, another year of no payrise…”. Should I worry? How else, apart from a possible slump in demand, could this affect me? I have no shares, no real property to my name, so why am I bothered?

 I do worry, because I have no way of knowing what the owners of my Hotel have invested in, or more importantly, how deep their Bankers and investors are in the shit.  On TV there is a big Sports Day in Bejing, but right now they are doing summersaults in Shanghai, and somebody might even be for the high jump…

If you stay in a Hotel, you probably know that the name above the door is a Brand. Somewhere deep down, we all accept how Branding works – a company owns a brand, and then licences that brand out to other, smaller companies. You know that Top Shop doesn’t own factories in Indonesia, that McDonalds Restaurants are mostly franchises, that Karrimor isn’t made in the UK anymore. Just so with that Hotel you have walked into.

'FastHotels'...

The Worlds biggest Hotel chains long ago discovered the secret to growth lies in the McDonalds model – franchising rather than actual ownership - at all levels of the market, as well as Management contracts. This frees up a lot of money that would otherwise go on maintenance, equipment or wages for directly employed staff. Money that would of course be better spent on Marketing, Board Renumeration or shareholder dividends.

                                  That luxury hotel you're staying in?.....It's a bit like this....

So, you enter the Hotel Lobby, cleaned by agency workers, go to your room (ditto), go to the restaurant or bar, possibly also agency staffed (your plates were cleaned by agency staff in the wash-up). The receptionist hands you the bill next morning  (now they probably are directly employed) – but your Bill has no reference to the actual owners of the Hotel, just the franchised brand they operate. Welcome to the outsourced and surreal world of Hospitality. For us too, our training will be Brand-specific, yet each month our paycheck comes from a different company. Some properties change Brand frequently – obviously the owners want a better (cheaper) deal, with HR norms that favour their interests even more, and access to maybe a bigger Marketing operation in specific markets. Some companies even operate franchises and management contracts with multiple Brands.

So who are we actually working for? How do we know exactly what to expect in pay and conditions? 

Promises....

Back in 2012, with the Olympics and an election looming, Boris Johnson needed a story to prove that the fun and games would directly benefit even the lowest paid Londoners. A senior executive of a worldwide Hotel operator stepped up to the plate and announced that by 2017 all workers in his company’s London Hotels would be paid The London Living Wage – see what a business friendly Mayor can deliver!!!! That company waited a little while, then sold its flagship in London, whilst retaining the management contract. It is not even 2017 yet but I guess those workers already know the small print – “sorry, but you are no longer our actual employees…”  His HR director pockets more than £1 million a year – money well spent I would say.

It is not just the big chains – smaller operators also have their secrets. One UK chain of luxury properties went bust three years ago when it was found that its charismatic head had fiddled the books by quoting increased property values for its Hotels as profits. Overnight hundreds of people didn’t know if they would be paid that month, and as suppliers pulled out staff were sent out to supermarkets to buy food and drink for functions with petty cash. A friend who worked in this company once told me “I should have got out when the manager told me that they didn’t care about the stock take results”.

Of course, everyone knows that with the Grand Luxury Hotels, the ones you have heard of, ownership is a very rich man’s game. Non-Doms, Sultans and assorted tycoons all have their vanity projects in London and around the world. In these cases the staff will pay their taxes, the owners – well, less so, sometimes even the Hotel will get away with tax avoidance.

Another set of owners are the big banks – one company I know that specialises in luxury, and is headed by a true Hotelier, can only say that it owns a fraction of its hotels – the rest being leased from the same bank that finances it. So if you are working away trying to pay down that mortgage or overdraft, chances are your ultimate boss is the same bank sending you those stern letters. Ironic no?

You’re Welcome

Another new blogger joins the fold...this time, a Bartender..

The dichotomy between craft and diplomacy, and the levels of pay and treatment – Part One by "Giovannino"

“Hell, you should be selling Bugattis!"*

I smile at what is a compliment from the group of off-duty business types around the table. That’s a new one, although being fairly good at this job, I do get compliments from guests: “Why aren’t you in charge?, “We’ve had so much fun!”, “You’ve made today so special…”

It is these comments that can make your day. Of course, there are other ones too, the worst being the perennial “I’m so glad we got the only English waiter…” or “We haven’t seen an English person all day…”

I usually try to keep it light, as shouting “Really? Define English you ignorant prick!” would probably not go down too well. “London is a world city” said with a smile, or “Well if they wanted the job, they would apply…” keep smiling, always keep smiling.

Working in Hotels Restaurants and Bars in London is like travelling the world without going through customs. Your guests come from every corner of the planet, with every religion, every creed, every positive and negative human trait exposed. You can easily build up a prejudice towards, say the Saudis who come in August, the vacationing Americans or the Russians who come to splurge around Christmas time. To be honest, after a few years your mind is either wide open or very closed indeed. And then there are your fellow workers …

“Bienvenuto alla Republica di Bar!” Welcome to the Republic of The Bar – that was my first introduction to working in London Five Stars. My new job was in one of the most prestigious Bars in one of the worlds most famous hotels, lets just call it The Splendide. I was the first Brit to work there in a decade, and, in the way of things, almost everyone else was Italian. I learned quickly how to count, order and swear like a Roman. I discovered the true art of making Coffee, I also found out the difference between Genova and Napoli, and how the accent of Palermo is different to Messina. My name was Italianised to Giovannino – little John.

All this for half what I had been earning outside London, just £8,000 a year. There was no service charge, but the tips, both cash and credit cards were phenomenal, and all administered with the Bar, with a clear points system, and HMG getting its percentage (tips are taxed as “unearned income” in the UK, although I have yet to find anyone from a Tax Office willing to swap jobs for a week…). Everything went into the pot, and at the end of the month we all came out alright. The first six months were very hard, as I adjusted to the levels of service and workload required, but I was truly learning a craft – although one that is at best still defined as “semi-skilled” by people who rate these things.

“Semi-skilled” my arse. Let me see you manage a station of twelve tables on a busy Thursday night, when you have a queue at the door, the Bar is four deep already and that Hen party has just ordered eight Mojitos. The German businessmen on table six are trying to buy a drink for the two ladies on table five, believing that they are escorts (they aren’t, and we don’t allow this, so I will have to inform the ladies, and also politely decline for them, leaving no hard feelings). A Hollywood star is sitting in the middle of this, and I would love to move him to an alcove, just so he gets some privacy, but the alcove won’t be free for at least ten minutes, and everybody wants it…

 …We are heaving- with that glorious mix of young and old, of The City and Westminster, Old money, New money and Once in a Lifetime guests here for that special occasion – a Birthday, an Anniversary, or just because they can, just this once, know luxury. And EVERYONE should be treated as if they are the star. A famous writer scowls on as he drinks his Champagne with his Aristocratic writer wife – don’t worry, he always scowls, Mr Grumpy, both egalitarian and snob.

After what seems like a lifetime, but in reality is only three hours, we start to wind down. 

As we close the bar – mopping up, polishing, filling in the orders for tomorrow and cashing up, a tall distinguished gentleman walks in, looking for a nightcap. He is actually the Lord Chancellor, the highest most powerful legal official in the land. However he is not staying in the Hotel: “I am terribly sorry milord, but we can only serve Hotel residents at this time” with a smile “Ah, quite so…”

                                       No Michael, no drink for you.

Or was it no drink for YOU Charles Falconer?

 or was it you Lord Irvine, Blair's first employer and the initiator of the proliferation of Zero Hours Contracts in the UK?

Either way, no special treatment when it comes to Hotel rules

This man once had lunch at The Ivy (so the rumour service has it), and had such a good time that at six in the evening he complained about the lack of food, and had to be reminded that he had eaten it already, four hours previously. Within two years, the licensing laws are relaxed. No skill was required at all this evening. You’re welcome.

 The Republic of The Bar indeed…

 *A Bugatti is a sports car

We have another new blog! Welcome "John", a longterm hotel worker. He works in the Food and Beverage department of a hotel in the same Chain we are writing about. This is his first blog:

The Hotel - land of the forced smile

 

When you come to stay at a hotel, you're probably in a good mood. You're looking forward to a well-deserved holiday, or maybe you're coming because of work - a conference or business meeting or some kind of training. 

 

At reception you're greeted by a smiling woman who will reel off the wide range of services and support you can access during your stay, in detail and with impeccable politeness.

The porter, with an equally professional smile, will take care of your luggage. 

 

The room attendant, slightly afraid and sallow, will greet you in the coridor and flash you a smile, clean your room immaculately, bring you extra towels, shampoos, carry out your trash, and then vanish like an un-noticed, smiling little ghost.

It's the same story at breakfast. You walk in and the waitress beams at you. You get to the buffet and the chef grin-grimaces as he talks you through your options before loading up your plate and wishing you Bon Apetite.

 

Welcome to the hotel, welcome to the land of forced smiles...

Have you ever considered what the people who offer you all of the above are really feeling?

Have you ever wondered where all these smiling, happy workers all around you come from?

You've probably never really thought about it. I think it would be worth it, just to reflect on it for a moment. But then maybe you'd say, well, what for? I'm on holiday. I paid for this hotel service, and so I expect it to be of the highest possible standard and that includes service with a smile...

Ok, but, take the receptionist who you met at the entrance. She carries out her work, all day, Standing Up, she can't sit down for a whole 7.5 hours a day. Sometimes her legs swell up from the constant standing, especially when her friend calls in sick and she had to cover her shift meaning standing up for 16 hours. Do you think, that after 7 hours of standing at the counter, you'd still have the energy to greet and smile and present the same options and services to guets, over and over and over, politely, and kindly, politely and kindly, non-stop...?

The luggage porter glibly lifts up your suitcases, with a smile, those same suitcases that you struggled to get into your taxi. You couldn't even barely handle one of them, and he's carrying hundreds every day. You were all crooked and panting, and there he is there coping with it, smiling away. 

 Really?

The room attendant who cleaned your room? She cleans 18 of those Every Day.

She lacks confidence because she doesn't speak English, yet back home she completed an MA in Philosophy. 

 

And what if you asked her why she's cleaning rooms for a living?

You might hear that, becuase in her country of origin, there's an economic crisis, or, that a disaster befell her family and they lost their home. So now she's got to earn here to help her parents and raise her children. 

 

And do you ask why she's still smiling? 

 

No, you're not going to ask that, because if you did, the answers would put you off your breakfast. You'd come to see that behind those immaculate uniforms and well-learned behaviours, are ordinary, exhausted, hotel workers. 

 

I'm sure that you probably never asked yourself how much we earn, for our politeness, our service, our patience, and our smiles. You will probably have paid a fortune for your room, and therefore might think that this frees you from taking any responsibility.

You wouldn't have much to smile about knowing that we are paid the lowest possible wage – the National Minimum Wage, of £6.50ph – while all the cash you (over)paid goes into the coffers of a greedy corporation.

So, after a few days, you'll leave the hotel. You'll put up a few photos on your Facebook profile; you on a giant hotel bed, you at a lavish bar in an elegant restaurant. You'll say how fantastic it was, and how the service was so good, with everyone so polite and friendly.

But when of your friends asks you where you were, you should tell them this: I was in the land of the forced smile..

Can we change this? 

                                         Yes We Can

 

Today's there's a tendency towards exploitation and the making of everything as cheap as possible.

Supermarkets can sell products cheaply because they save money on us – on our pay and 'productivity. They can lower the price of goods when those working for them are agency workers deprived of bonuses, holiday pay, sick pay and social support. They can lower the price of goods because they've lowered the price of labour. It's the same in the hotel sector. The companies offering the same services – contract cleaning in housekeeping 

departments for example, or catering, don't want to raise their rates through the client when the price of water, electricity and gas etc rises, so instead they seek to make savings, 'cost efficiencies' (maintain profits) through their workers instead.

The thing that suprises me about all of this, is that so many of us accept this, and we still keep smiling.

- A hotel worker

**NEW BLOG, by "Charlotte"**

A day in my life as a room attendant...

Hi, my name is Charlotte*. I've been working as a room attendant in a reputable central London Hotel for quite a while now.


I wanted to tell you about one of my average days at work, so that you could see it from my perspective.

 

I bet most of you think that the work of a room attendant is nothing much. She comes, cleans, and goes home, and it might seem this way but this is just how it looks from the outside, to the hotel guests or friends who have never worked in hotels.

Yes our work depends on cleaning rooms and having them ready for new guests, as well as maintaining cleanliness in those already occupied. However, noone really knows that room attendants are often physically and psychologically plagued.

Noone is aware of the fact that supervisors often 'feed' on the room attendants in many ways, maybe because they they are in a bad mood, or the boss upset them or they simply don't like your face. 

 

In hotels there is a division of labour, or as I'd call it, a class system. It's composed of the following: the room attendant, the supervisor, and 'The Top', ie the bosses ruling over the workers. This division of classes all too often results in a heirarchy of oppression. The Top abuses the supervisors, and they in turn abuse the room attendants - because they can, or they think they can. 

 

On more that one occasion, a supervisor will give me an additional room to clean, because they simply don't like me, or because they're in a bad mood. Nevermind that I already had many of my own rooms to clean – a list of some ten departures and nine occupieds, which means 19 rooms to clean in a day, and within those a few linen changes – and despite other girls having better luck and less rooms on their lists, But, because this supervisor doesn't like me, she keeps giving me extra rooms to do.

The second issue I'd like to mention on additional rooms is that it's happened to me a few times that I DIDN'T KNOW that I had been given extra rooms, at all, even though the supervisor knew this at probably 10am but didn't deign to inform me until 5pm. I found this out once and was so mad than in the end I talked back to the supervisor, asking him why didn't he inform me of this earlier because surely he was informed of this a good few hours ago? Do you know how he responded? He said, 'Because I forgot'. And I was there, already psychologically prepared to go home (I was finishing my final room) and then this. Anyone in my position would be annoyed, and moreover, there was no option to refuse.

'You have to do that room and that's it', he said, and left the room slamming the door behind him.

Another situation I found myself involved someone from 'The Top'. It was already past 4pm, I'd finished my work and had got to the office and handed back my list of completed rooms and my keys, and signed out, when the boss came in.

He said to me, 'You won't be going home yet there are still rooms to do on the X floor'. 

 

I immediately turned to the boss and said, 'I'm very sorry but Ive handed back my keys, list, and I've signed out so, I am not actually technically at work anymore, and I have an appointment which I must attend to, so, if you'll excuse me, I have to leave'. 

 

Do you know how he replied? He said, 'I have not said that you have finished your work, you will leave when I let you' and he wouldn't let me get a word in. My nerves were storming within me but I held my tongue because I was scared, if I said anything at all, I would lose my job.

Working in the hotel, we're often under huge pressure. It's frequently the case that we're overwhelmed with rooms to clean, huge 'busy', with loads of rooms, including VIP rooms which you must clean to perfection or even better, and which take an hour or longer to complete, or group rooms which you need to finish to a deadline because if you take 'too long' you're hurried with 'Why is this taking you so long'? 'Hurry up, the guest is already waiting in reception'. 

 If that wasn't enough, in such days you often also get 'pending' rooms which are rooms which need to be ready immediately and or better, by yesterday. On such days, work is simply tragic, you don't even know where to look or where to lay your hands; the supervisor keeps coming in every five minutes to rush you and this just cumulates into unbearable stress.

It's really hard to clean so many rooms and to such deadlines, especially when you've got really dirty rooms. Sometimes you walk into a room and your hands just fall to your sides when you see the mess. 

 

Hotel guests don't respect the work room attendants need to put in to make a room perfect, they leave everything all over the place and just walk out, whereas we really try hard to make sure everything looks neat and pristine.

And if it ever happens that guests do 'value' our work by leaving us a pound or something, often we won't know it because before we get to the room, the supervisor will have already been to check if the room is free and ready to be cleaned and will have simply pocketed the tips for themselves. On more than one occasion I have walked in and caught them doing exactly this, startling and confusing them in the process.

Alright, one more issue I'd like to mention here is the canteen food. You probably think that in luxury hotels they give us delicious food, 'caviar', but you are much mistaken. 

 

Our food, often, I'd say even every day, reminds me of nothing you'd ever want your lips to touch, farm animals are probably given better food than us. On more than one occasion I've gone the whole day hungry, getting by on some nasty drink from the machine, because I just couldn't let that food pass my lips, just the very look or it, nevermind the smell or taste of it. I couldn't eat it.

                            Really horrible food, you wouldn't eat it.

At times all that's really edible is just a few slices of tomatoes with cucumber, really nutritious huh? I've been thinking I really need to sort out bringing some food from home, bring some sandwiches in, because working without energy or sustenance, you just can't carry on. 

 

At the end of the day, what's most important here is keeping up our energy, which we need bags of, but how do we do this when we have nowhere to draw it from? The very smell of that canteen food, just thinking about it now makes me sick. 

 

I know we need to change this situation, this system. I know that. And I know, that we can do it.

*Name concealed for security reasons

 Talk - Listen - Collectivise

I want to tell you more. The other conversations I had, the follow-ups, the mystery chef, the Polish supervisor who felt so humiliated by her work that she'd stopped telling her friends and family back home what she was doing, still cleaning, still below the London Living Wage, five years on..

More about sitting alone in the canteen and withdrawing, feeling the silence and isolation and being too exhausted to speak.

Falling asleep out with friends at pub tables. Turbo coffee in the morning followed by too much sugar....How hand cream is vital, how you can never change any bedsheets or clean anything at home without having flashbacks of what you've been doing over a dozen times a day and slipping into automatic...getting thin..getting out of touch with news..unable to read...sleeping on the tube...backache....dreaming about getting out of this...

I know how to organise. But it's difficult. There are some easy aspects to remember though, for all of you reading this and wanting to change your situation at work.

Organising is about relationships. Organising is about building trust. Organising requires patience and perseverance. Get used to failure. But prepare for success. And the need for movement-building and solidarity outside the workplace.

But above all, the first steps are this:

Talk – You need to talk to people. You need to break the ice, break the isolation. There is a misguided view that we can organise through social media. Social media is an amplifier rather than an instigator. Most of us, as we know, are not on twitter! It's a privileged medium for those with smartphones and the time to look at them. I know we don't when we're rushing all over rooms, often with no reception or wifi. To be 'plugged in' to that speed-network, you need the time and tools to scan it, work it and benefit from it. You can strike up a conversation at reception (carefully), in the kitchen, on break, in the smoking area, in the locker room, in the lift. Anywhere you have time to see each other. Share a tea. Tea is one of the greatest social lubricants of all time! Revolutions are plotted over cuppas...

Listen – This is the big one. The most important part of any organising. After striking up conversations, we need to listen to what people have to say. It's common to want to vent, to go on and fill silence, but, we need to hear from people. We know it's rare for us to really share our feelings and our ideas about work and whether we can change our situation. But that process starts with hearing each other out. How are we doing?....And remember what people tell you, remember it because you'll hear the same issues from many different people and we need to recognise and reflect what we've got in common.

Collectivise – Nine times out of ten if you're feeling it, someone else is too. If it's your problem, it's a shared problem. The same problems repeat themselves, because they are un-addressed, because they are products of exploitation and oppressive behaviour, and unresolved they soon become systemic and structural and cultural. Like bullying, stress, pressure, low pay, self-cut as well as management cut breaks, unpaid overtime. These unfair conditions become normalised. 'That's just how it is' we tell ourselves and the intensity of our work exhausts and isolates us. 'It'll never change' we think.

But it can. And it does (remember New York). Especially when we work for some of the wealthiest, most profitable and constant companies in the world. They need us. Remember that. We make their money. We make the operation tick over. It's common for people to focus on their own individual issues and problems because our dominant culture teaches us we're alone. Mass individualism means we've lost the ability to think and act and take decisions collectively. We need to re-learn collective action but it is natural, co-operation is the cornerstone of society, and contrary to Thatcher's assertion that there is no such thing as society, only the individual, we are social. Take a problem it, share it. Got an individual grievance? Collectivise it. See and feel that you're in it together. Act together. Support each other. Stick together. That's a union.

So, as I keep on cleaning, agitating, and organising (: I want to give this space over to other people, working for the same hotel, as well as in the same hotel chain, in Housekeeping as well as other departments to take up their voice.

This 'aint my last word. I'm stepping back to let my colleagues step in. Stay with us. We're stepping it up....

Omnishambles

So who is it? Who have I been working for?

Well, the company is called Omni Facilities Management. This is a contract cleaning company, registered in the UK, currently operating across 150 hotels in the UK and Singapore. Omni have a presence in some of London's top hotels including global powerhouses like Hilton.

Established in 1980, it's been running for 36 years. Last year's gross profits were £4,076,131. The company says it employs 4000 people – over 2000 of those on direct contracts. Employment would suggest a relationship of mutual obligation, in fact for many the relationship is one of being employed on a virtually zero hours contract, as in my case, a four hour per week contract. I'm guaranteed just £26* wages by Omni per week. 

But this isn't the only problematic part of the contract. There is an unlawful clause (depicted below) which states that the first two weeks of work are 'training' and are unpaid if an employee leaves before 3 months are up. This means that hundreds of pounds of wages which are owed to workers, are unpaid. Workers are not getting the minimum wage for the hours they've worked – a violation of the law.

 The rogue clause - and below, typed in:

Training: The first 2 weeks of your employment are dedicated and designated ‘Training weeks’ as or Client hotels require trained team members. Payment for this training will be paid when you leave our employment however, should you voluntarily leave within the first 12 weeks, the company reserves the right to charge you the equivalent cost of providing this transferable, job specific training. The company may, within your first pay cycle, at its discretion pay you a salary advance subject to certain qualifying criteria and based on assessed competence and capability. Any advance will be deducted from your subsequent salary.

I pointed this out to Omni and they told me I had signed the contract and had therefore consented to carrying out unpaid work for the company, despite cleaning to a good standard, carrying out spring cleans and meeting my quota of rooms per day.

Given that the staff turnover in Housekeeping Departments is about 50% - I.e half of all new starters leave within a few months, and taking into account those who take the job over a summer period and are unable to fulfil the three month period imposed by Omni - there could be thousands of workers out there who are owed substantial amounts of cash by this company.

Most Housekeeping Department workers do not speak English as a first language, with many unable to speak English at all. They are not given the Employee Handbook or their contract in their first language, which means they often don't know what they've signed and what it means for their wages and conditions. Most are likely to accept the explanation given by the company as to why they will not be paid or have not been paid for work they have done, as part of this 'training period'.

Agencies taking over from the Omni contract also end up taking on this liability, meaning they could be subject to claims by workers who have been shafted by Omni but will now need to be paid out by their new agency.

Omni Facilities have questions to answer over their contractual clause which blatantly violates employment law. You work – you get paid, End Of. A two week 'training period' can see the company pocketing some £480 per worker for two five-day weeks of labour.

They justify this as the cost of providing the training, This 'training' consists of cleaning rooms with and alongside experienced workers who lead by example, but they don't get any extra pay for providing this 'training'. Their load is just a little bit lighter. The training also consists of just 3 days of shadowing, so the two week period is also questionable.

                                                 What I have to do

Looking through Omni's website, they try to present themselves as a 'good corporate citizen' as all these Housekeeping agencies do, sponsoring vocational training and pledging to 'revolutionise hotel housekeeping...through leading software'. 

What will revolutionise this industry and this sector, isn't going to be new software, it'll be seeing the back of Omni and other agencies whose sole purpose is to profit from ever higher 'productivity' quotas (making mostly women migrant workers work harder and faster, faster and harder, at a great cost to their physical and mental and health and well being). Our labour is their grist. They do not add any value themselves to business, we are the business, and we do it all for minimum wage – and up to two weeks for free! Whilst some of the most profitable companies in the world wash their hands of us.

Hotels should guarantee a living wage, as well as stable and decent terms and conditions by employing us directly and eliminating this strata of competitive companies tendering on how much more labour they can squeeze out of us - an ever more desperate workforce. 

Agencies are supposed to exist only to cover and peaks and troughs in labour supply, not to keep us all on permanent zero hours contracts and constant precarity.

But I'm not looking for anyone to save me.

Omni are a shambles. But they are not alone in the shark pool. We know public opinion is on our side about the need for highly profitable companies to pay the living wage and ensure fair, humane and healthy conditions for all workers. 

The question is, when will the the hotel chains wake up and smell the R2, and clean up this industry? The answer is when we, self organised and unionised, force them to.

* Originally this figure was £24 per week. The correct figure based on the Minimum Wage is actually £26. This is down to author error. Apologies for any confusion caused.