Hospitality Bosses Want The PUP Scrapped - They Should Try Paying Their Workers A Decent Wage Instead!
The Restaurants Association of Ireland recently called for the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) in the Twenty-Six Counties to be wound down sooner than planned February 2022. They claim that this move would address the shortage of labour in the hospitality sector.
The Licensed Vintners Association has also bemoaned the lack of people willing to work in the sector and supported government plans to extend subsidies to employers after the PUP has ceased.
The implication is clear, that lazy workers are sitting around watching Netflix, refusing to come back to work and piggy-backing on the hard-working entrepreneurial restaurant and pub owners of the country.
Nothing could be further from the truth and a recent survey of the hospitality sector by the Unite trade union gives a better indication of what is going on.
Amongst other things, the industry is rife with low pay, wage and tip theft, bullying and work-related stress. 30% of the employees in the sector are on the minimum wage and their average weekly take home pay is €232.70 per week.
Tip and even theft wage is rampant in the hospitality sector according to those who actually work in it
Further, hospitality employers have consistently fought union organising efforts and rarely engage with trade unions, whether directly or through the industrial relations services of the state.
Faced with this reality, of course some workers will make the reasonable, indeed logical, decision to remain on the PUP.
There are also many other reasons why some workers might chose to remain on the PUP while it is available to them. For starters, the process of re-starting a PUP claim if restrictions are reintroduced can be slow and many workers cannot take the risk of missing out on an income for a number of weeks.
Other workers may be choosing to stay on the PUP because they do not qualify for Jobseekers payments for various reasons, usually involving absences from the workforce for prolonged periods of time due to illness, studying, parenting or caring duties.
Others still may not qualify for welfare supports due to the on-call nature of their job or uncertainty around work hours.
All of these scenarios show that the decision to remain on the PUP is a decision that is forced on workers and not a lifestyle choice as the employers groups are claiming.
Of course, it is no surprise that the sectors suffering from the most acute labour shortages, including the hospitality sector, are almost completely non-unionised, resulting in the lower rates of pay and inferior working conditions.
Instead of blackening the reputations of their own workers and calling for the PUP to be scrapped, bosses in the hospitality sector should try paying their workers a decent wage and improve their conditions of employment, including the right to union organisation and recognition.
In our Democratic Programme for the New Republic, Éirígí outlines how we would make union recognition compulsory and outlaw the exploitative practices currently rife in the hospitality industry, so that decent work options are available to all.