Below Stairs

By New Worker correspondent

 

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) made $816 million profit on a $27.4 billion turnover last year from its 5,656 hotels across the globe. These include chains such as Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, with which New Worker readers are doubtless well acquainted. It has been reported to the United Nations (UN) Global Compact by Unite the Union.

IHG signed up to the UN Global Compact in 2009, committing to uphold its 10 principles including the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining – a move that helped to secure its contract as the official hotel provider for the 2012 London Olympics.

 A new report from Unite shows that their signatures on the Compact do not amount to a row of beans. It records a decade of poor working practices and deliberate anti-trade union avoidance tactics across IHG’s UK hotel-estate, including housekeepers at a five star IHG-owned hotel being bullied, overworked and then denied the right to have their grievance heard collectively.

Unite is now urging the UN to step in after IHG management’s repeated backtracking on allowing Unite access to the group’s Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels in London to speak to workers, distribute union materials and represent members over nearly a decade of on–off negotiations.

Hospitality campaigners from Unite last Friday picketed shareholders arriving at the AGM at Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, with a call for the hotel operator to pay its UK staff the real living wage of £9 per hour (£10.55 per hour in London) and to recognise the union. In contrast, the cheapest starter in the dining room is £11.

Unite regional officer Dave Turnbull said: “Hotel staff at IHG branded properties, including Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, are being bullied, overworked and underpaid. Their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining denied.

 “Unite wants to see the UN Global Compact step up and defend the integrity of its corporate sustainability initiative. Companies need to understand that promoting and protecting human rights at work is more than just a box ticking exercise.

“The UN Global Compact has got to mean something. It’s got to be genuine. If it’s not, or companies are allowed to get away with picking and choosing the bits that suit, then the whole thing is devalued.”