The identification and selection o f ‘the main issues at work’ in the hospitality sector is not a straightforward process, but rather comes from highly subjective and indeed political judgments. The hierarchy of the ‘problems at stake’, in terms o f urgency and range, change not only according to the ways they are perceived by the workers, according to their status (contractual, occupational, agency/in-house, migration etc.) and their particular position within the labour process. In the context o f the trade union campaign it was also influenced by the discursive capacities of the subjects experiencing these problems. The different priorities, issues and agendas emerging from the grievances during the hotel workers campaign ultimately reflected the power differentials between those who ‘organise’ these issues into demands ‘from the outside’ and the migrants who experience those issues directly but sometimes remain voiceless.
The first meeting o f the ‘hotel organising teams’, staged by the trade union and the CSO, was meant to actively involve the workers from the campaign’s two main target hotels. In that occasion the demands for dignity and respect emerged as the most important from the accounts of the room attendants and housekeepers brought together in small working groups. Workers were supposed to discuss the questions: ‘what are the three main challenges for hotel workers? What would you ask your manager to change?’ In my working group the discussion focused on the issues of lack o f recognition and denigration at work, while the major demand for change was about dignity. The results in the plenary were summarised as follows:
Group 1:
Main challenges: Respect, Wages, and Favouritism ‘Pushing’ (harassment) and discrimination
Demands: Wages changing according to inflation, non-arbitrary behaviour by employers
Group 2:
Main challenges: Development o f staff (lack of, and impediments to, promotion and career progress)
Demands: allowing each department to run themselves (self-organisation o f work in each department); introducing forms o f staff representation
(Ethnographic diary, organising hotel teams meeting, Conway Hall)
While issues o f control over the labour process appear among the demands, differential treatment and favouritism seemed to be felt most urgently. These unfair practices are reinforced by the highly personalised nature o f the employment relationship typical of hotel and catering work, whereby workers and supervisors directly interact in relatively enclosed not mechanised spaces. As against the lack of respect on the part o f the managers, a voice from the plenary asserted that ‘the workers are the soul o f the hotel’ signalling a sense o f identification with and pride for the work done well, as well as awareness o f the workers’ indispensability to the functioning of the hotel as a whole.
This meeting chaired by the Civil Society Organisation involved in the hotel campaign in Central London offered an important space for the workers to identify and discuss the main problems they faced at work and possible solutions. Yet, it also highlighted differences in the positions of the social actors involved. While organisers from the CSO and the trade union officers in particular emphasised financial aspects and strategically focused on the demand for the London Living Wage, many workers explained how the everyday mistreatment, humiliation, bullying and lack of respect from the management, were the most frustrating issues they had to deal with. These forms o f harassment and humiliation seem to be a direct consequence o f the degradation o f cleaning work as ‘woman’s’ and ‘unskilled work’ as considered above, and the overall lack of recognition of domestic services as ‘proper work’. Indeed, as emphasised by researchers in the field, far from being un-skilled, hospitality work and cleaning in particular are forms o f jobs that require high ‘personal attributes and capacity’ e.g. ‘the ability to work hard, stamina, flexibility in terms o f working hours, and attention to details’ (Grugulis et al. 2004, cit. in Dutton et al. 2008:
113).
The Brazilian maid recently arrived in London, who was not used to this kind of work commented:
The work is too hard...they pretend much more beyond the human limits... it is physically unbearable! I am trying to look for something else. I want to start an English course...and then there will be more possibilities. But for the m om ent...‘trabajar como una moral’ (Cecilia, female, white other, Brazil, 9 months in London, casual, chambermaid)
The woman implies that these jobs involving intensive labour are bearable only in the short term, i.e. until she will work out exit strategies from her current low paid-job and start to develop
herself by starting a language course. Indeed certain participants perceived their problems differently according to their subjective trajectory, their present migration status and future ‘mobility plans’. The social composition o f the workforce in the sector combined with management strategies o f division further diversify the perceptions of the major issues experienced at work and possibilities for resistance and improvement among migrant workers in the hospitality sector.
3.3 The new stratification of migrant labour in London hospitality
A particular history o f immigration in the metropolis and more recent changes in the composition of the workforce, state and labour market regulation combine to constitute a complex stratification52 of labour in the hospitality industry. According to Salt and Millar, in 2006 foreign- born workers accounted for 21 % o f all workers in this sector in the UK.53. Among both migrants and non-migrants 40% o f all the workers in this sector have non-standard contracts and are low- skilled (ibid. 755). In London these workers are overwhelmingly employed in the service sector and in low-wage jobs (Datta et al. 2007, May et al 2007). The Labour Force Survey 2006 supplies
52 The notion o f ‘social stratification’ in the sociological literature emphasises a hierarchy o f social positions from the
high to the low status. To ‘social inequality’ it adds the fact that ‘inequality has been hardened or institutionalized and there is a system o f social relationship that determines who gets what and why’ (Kerbo 2006: 10). The term stratification is preferred to that o f segmentation or segregation for its specific theoretical implications. First o f all it aspires to avoid the residual determinism and structuralism o f segmentation theories (see Chapter 1). It is also intended to avoid the ‘categorical’ nature o f segregation analysis, while recognising relevance o f the ranking o f differences along class and status, gender and ethnic lines proliferating among the workforce used in combination with feminist intersectional perspectives (McDowell 2008a). Here, however, the emphasis on stratification draws specifically from recent analysis o f the historical process o f capitalist development by autonomist and feminist Marxism (Federici 2004). According to this analysis Marx’s original understanding o f primitive accumulation is re-interpreted as a continuous
process o f accumulation o f differences and divisions within the working class (along gender, race, age lines), whereas
not only the differentiation o f work-tasks but also the social degradation o f women (and other unwaged labourers) has been central to alienating workers from each other (ibid. 115). Thus maintaining Marxian notions about the dynamics o f (wage) stratification and class hierarchy, but complicating them by returning to centre stage excluded categories that Marx’s explanation o f ‘free wage labour’ reproduced (women, the unwaged reproduction workers, slaves etc.), I draw from those critiques that highlight how hierarchy is continually re-stratified along the international and sexual/racial division o f labour through ongoing enclosures and the imposition o f discipline ( ‘disciplinary integration’) (De Angelis, 2007: 72).
53 Precise calculation o f the number o f foreign-born employees is rendered impossible by the fact that the number o f illegal entrants in the UK cannot be established (McDowell et al a2008: 756; see also TUC 2008). It is possible to make an estimate using the number o f National Insurance numbers allocated to non-British nationals: this rose from 349,200 in 2002-03 to 713,500 in 2006-07 (Department o f Work and Pensions 2007, cit. in McDowell et al a2008 : 756)
further interesting data about the characteristics o f the labour composition of the hotel sector: between 56% and 59% o f hotel workers in the UK are women, 11% from ethnic minority and 40% between the age o f 16 and 24 years old. The workforce also appears to be segregated by gender: almost half o f all hotel workers are employed in low qualified ‘elementary occupations’, such as cleaning jobs in which 95% o f employees are women (LFS 2006).
A more recent and fine-grained analysis o f the Labour Force Survey by Wills et al. (2009a), shows that in 2004-05 foreign-born workers constituted the 76% of the workforce in occupations such as chefs and cooks, 62% among catering assistants and 69% o f cleaners (Table 2.4.Wills et al. 2009a: 42). In terms o f concentration o f certain nationalities in specific parts o f the economy and in particular jobs, the recent survey realised by Wills and colleagues highlighted the concentration of Eastern European workers in hospitality jobs, whereas 32% (from a sample o f 423 people) of adult Brazilians were employed as cleaners and Ghanaians and Nigerians mainly in cleaning and care jobs (ibid. 44).
That year 2006 saw the largest number of migrant workers registered entering the UK, with Polish workers constituting the largest single national group (McDowell et al. 2008a: 755). With the accession of eight Eastern European countries into the EU in 2004 the British Government decided to open the labour market to the new member states from the first year o f membership (in the EU only Ireland and Sweden applied the same policy). This had a substantial effect on the hospitality industry (see also McKay 2008, Krings 2008). Although in 2006 the Government decided to restrict access to work to the migrants coming from the A2 accession countries (Bulgaria and Romania) under fear o f an uncontrollable numbers o f newcomers putting excessive pressure on the internal market (Krings 2008), the 2004 accession continued to have a large impact on those sectors traditionally employing migrant labour54.
54 The Accession Monitoring report (Home Office 2006) recorded that, o f the 500,000 workers from A8 accession countries the majority (61.5%) were Polish, while out o f the 50,000 entering the London labour market alone, 29% found jobs in the hospitality sector during the first year after accession.
Considering these latest developments it is worth questioning if the relationship between agency or more generally ‘casual’ and migrant labour (McDowell et al. 2008a) represents a continuum in the history o f the hospitality sector. What are the new elements in the stratification of labour in London hotels? And what are the main consequences of current forms of divisions for the lives of the migrants at work and for their potential to fight and improve their poor conditions of employment?
3.3.1 The different accounts o f the role o f migrant labour in the hospitality sector
In the interviews with the trade union activists different accounts emerged about the characteristics of the workforce and the ways they relate to the high level of migrant employment in the sector.
Different understandings o f the vulnerable status o f migrant workers as a factor in their employment arose from the interviews. For instance the organiser of the campaign explained the use of migrant labour as a structural element in the industry, emphasising the ‘slavery-like’ nature of their employment. This is considered the main tool in the hands of the employers to maintain high returns:
When you start working with them you realise that the whole business is based on their exploitation. This is a legalised slavery: the only reason why they make so much profits in the industry (...) The majority o f them are migrants, they d o n ’t know the law, they do not know the regulation (Agnieska, female, white other, Poland, 9 years in London, community organiser, hotel workers campaign)
According to the organiser (herself a migrant recently arriving in London during the last wave o f immigration from Poland) employers deliberately rely on the relatively greater vulnerability of migrant workers as compared to non-migrants. The fact that ‘new migrants’ tend to be more numerous among agency workers is thus considered a consequence o f their weak ability to directly alter the terms and conditions o f their employment as they have limited access to legal knowledge, bargaining and formal representation through union membership (McDowell et al. 2008a: 755; see also TUC 2008). Certainly the fact o f being non-unionised affects migrant workers’ ability to negotiate for better working conditions, thus contributing to their greater weakness vis-a- vis their employers. At the same time however, reflecting on the ‘position’ of migrant labour in the
hospitality sector, it seems that a double dependency exists between the two sides of the employment relationship:
(...) but we know that the hospitality sector would collapse without migrant labour. They would have to raise wages to bring British people to work...Suddenly without migrant labour they should pay a living wage (...) Basically this is a question of the ‘share of the cake... (Tom, male, white, UK bom, Irish origin, part-time officer, Hotels branch)
The informant draws upon the view, quite widespread among the trade union movement, that labour immigration provokes a general downward pressure on national wage levels (because of their low bargaining power in negotiating the right ‘share o f the cake’). In labour studies literature ‘immigration’ is also generally considered as one o f the factors impacting on low-wage work in the UK. ‘New inflows’ of labour migration are considered likely to hold down pay and conditions (at least in the segments o f the market where immigrants compete with ‘indigenous’ low-skilled workers) (Mason et al. 2008: 72, see also Lloyd et al. 2008).
Research on London low-paid jobs provides evidence for a correlation between workers’ migration status and their poorer conditions o f employment (Datta et al. 2006, Evans et al. 2005). The parallel rise in low-paid jobs together with a dramatic increase in the foreign-bom population, resulting in low-paid jobs filled by foreign-bom migrants, has been named in the literature on the specific characteristics of London’s labour market, as the ‘London migrant division o f labour’ (Spence, 2005, May et. al 2006).
Often in the literature on the degrading conditions in hotel work the use of migrant labour is understood as a major tool for cutting labour costs in the face o f increased competition (TUC 2007, Vanselow et al. 2009). Authors like Wood (1997, cit. in Dutton et al 2008: 101) highlighted more generally how reliance on ‘marginal workers’, including women, the young, casuals, part-time, students and migrant workers, is one o f the main business strategies to cope with varying patterns in demand and keeping wages down. In this regard it must be remembered that the actual impact of immigrants on the internal labour market is indeed quite controversial. Recent official research (Somerville and Sumption 2009) reports the general consensus that ‘the labour market effects are small overall, but if there are negative impacts on wages and employment they are experienced by previous immigrants, especially those with limited English language skills; manual workers in jobs that do not require language proficiency; individuals on benefits or otherwise marginalised in the labour force’ (cit. in Rogers et al. 2009: 48). Similarly, the research o f Wills et al. (2009a)
emphasises the link between the new migrant division o f labour and the growth of the ‘other reserve army’ o f indigenous and minority groups ‘on benefits’ created by UK welfare reforms.
It has been considered how the idea o f the ‘reserve army of labour’ to explain migrants’ special position in the labour market was criticised by the autonomist perspective in relation to the system o f ‘Gastarbeit’ in Germany (see Chapter 1), highlighting the active intervention of the state in shaping migrants’ juridical status and its constraining effects. In recent time, Rogers et al. (2009) argued that the much-debated issue o f wages and ‘social dumping’ pressuring national workers as a consequence of increased in labour immigration and competition for jobs, is in fact, rather, connected to political and juridical interventions, both at a UK and EU level. These obstruct the rights of unions and governments to extend pre-existing collective agreements to migrants or contracted workers.55
From the present research, it will become clear how the reality o f the labour market and its new stratification complicate mainstream understandings o f the impact o f labour migration on ‘indigenous’ low-waged work as well as a reductive view o f migrant as just vulnerable labour.
The unionist from the restaurant branch stressed the ‘temporal dimension’, that is, the relatively recent migration and length o f settlement shaping the level o f migrants’ exploitability:
I do not think it’s a matter o f colour, or where they come from ...the hotel industry is very good at identifying the group o f workers willing to accept low p a y ... it doesn’t matter if they come from Eastern Europe or Somalia.... In the mid-1980s when the conservative government stopped issuing work permits for the hotel industry, employers were going to job centres in Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle: there were so many young people on long term unemployment that if they offered them a living job in London they were not gonna refuse the offer! And they were actually accepting lower wages than the Portuguese accepted when coming as refugees in the 1970s... ‘this is the latest group o f migrant we can exploit, therefore we do it’...(Roger, male, white, UK bom, full-time union officer, Restaurant and Bars branch)
55 See for instance the effects o f the judgements o f the European Court o f Justice in the ‘Viking and Laval’ cases, which strengthened the rights o f employers to use contracted labour, as opposed to the rights o f the trade unions and national governments to enforce existing bargaining agreements (cit. in Rogers et al. 2009: 50)
While the trade unionist’s account confirms the important correspondence between low pay and migration status, he also seems to assume that the newcomers in particular (independently of their nationality) will constitute the group ready to accept the lowest conditions of pay and employment. In his view ‘internal migrants’ may be ‘favoured’ by employers because of personal characteristics including their long-term unemployment, their young age and the attraction to them of living in London. This response reflects the emphasis in contemporary political debates as well as in the literature about the reliance o f employers on the recently arrived EU migrant workers in the sector, (the so-called ‘Polish factor’). Especially in bottom-end services, business is meant to be making profits out o f a situation where the market ‘is flooded with desperate, exploitable Polish women’ (quot. in Dutton et al. 2008: 108, my emphasis).
But are these women really so desperate? Can we understand the new competition between workers (indigenous, old and new migrants) in the sector as driven mainly by wage differentials? What are the other factors shaping the dynamics o f exploitation and the new stratification in everyday work experiences in London hotels?
The interviews with the workers (both temporary staff employed through agencies and those permanently and directly employed through hotels) and with the participants of the trade union campaign exposed how a mix o f social constructions, racial and gender stereotyping and complex tensions put into question a simplistic reading o f the labour market situation affected by recent patterns o f immigration as polarised between ‘new migrants’ versus ‘old immigrants’. A mechanical understanding of their exploitation, whether simply based on their more recent migration status or on their willingness to accept lower wages, appears unable to grasp a changing situation where a multiplicity of levels o f discrimination, complex social dynamics and processes of mutual stereotyping take place in and outside the workplaces.