COVID-19 highlights endemic problems in hospitality industry
With 78 per cent of all Australian hospitality workers employed on a casual basis, the overnight closure of many restaurants and bars due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused an immense amount of financial distress.
According to a survey conducted by Hospo Voice, the United Workers Union’s digital union for hospitality workers, this distress has continued throughout the pandemic.
The nationwide #RebuildHospo Survey assessed the impact of COVID-19 on 1158 hospitality workers: insecure employment combined with wage theft has forced many casual hospitality workers to find different ways to access money during this time.
The survey found
- 35% had to borrow money from friends or family
- 32% had to access their super
- 30% had to ask for rent reduction or deferral
- 20% had to go without essentials
- 12% had to go to a charity or foodbank
- 10% had to move out of their house
- 7% suffered a relationship breakdown
Of great concern to the union was almost half these workers had less than a month’s savings in the bank with very little money available for rent, bills or food.
Wage theft was also problematic.
Many have not been paid penalty rates or were paid below minimum award rate. Unpaid super was also an issue, along with failure of tips to be passed onto relevant staff.
“When something like COVID-19 strikes, if you’re casual it means you can be plunged into poverty overnight – which is exactly what happened for countless workers,” says Jo-anne Schofield, National President United Workers Union.
“COVID-19 has torn wide open the rotten foundations on which this industry is built. Now, as the hospitality industry reopens, this is one of the top issues our members want to address. It’s time to rebuild the hospitality industry to be better and fairer.
“Without hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers being stood aside, we would not have been able to cope with the public health crisis. It’s time to repay our debt to these workers so they can avoid further hardship.”
Covid-19 has drawn attention to the insecurity of all hospitality jobs.
Now, as hotels, restaurants and bars re-open, unions, governments and staff must work together to improve industry standards.
Irit Jackson, 1st July 2020
