Concluding Remarks With many low wa

Concluding Remarks
With many low wage workers, the NMW is now an accepted feature of the
hotel industry. There is also some indication from existing data that non-com-
pliance is an issue but little is known about the reasons for it. It is this gap in
understand that is addressed in this article.
The originality of our research is that it analyses the management and
employment practices of a group of workers who have been over-looked in pre-
vious studies of the industry, and analysis of whom reveals much about the
NMW and low pay. Three points in particular are revealed. First, that pay for
room attendants is now at or only slightly above the NMW. This finding res-
onates with other data, such as the two Income Data Services (IDS) surveys
(2005, 2007b). This employer pegging of pay rates to the NMW across the
industry is, indeed, becoming more entrenched, with the proportion of employ-
ers surveyed by IDS who now base pay on the NMW rising from around two-
thirds to almost nine-tenths. Second, some non-compliance occurs even in
hotels that are profitable and far from being at the bottom of the value chain
where profit margins can be tight. Whilst Ram et al. 's (2004) research revealed
employers who claimed that they could not afford to pay the NMW, our
research discovered employers who can pay but don't pay. Third, regardless of
whether or not employers are compliant with NMW legislation, there are other
management and employment practices centred on employer demand for flexi-
bility that result in low pay for room attendants. The absence of effective regu-
lation of working time and temporary agency work means that employers are
able to utilize contingent contracts that create working hours insecurity and so
financial insecurity for workers.
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1234 Sociolog/ Volume 42 « Number 6 « December 2008
Addressing these three problems requires a raising of the NMW, better
enforcement of it and the introduction of effective regulation of working time
and agency work. As for the first requirement, one of its former chairs has
admitted that the LPC was initially too timid, adopting a 'deliberately cautious
approach'. As a consequence, after employers warned of massive job losses, the
initial rate was intentionally set low (quoted in Summers, 2006: 6). As for
the second, the risk of detection of non-compliance has been extremely low, the
power of enforcement weak and punishment minimal (Metcalf, 2007). Only
now has more money been allocated to enforcement and the penalties for non-
compliance raised - and a first successful employer prosecution occurred
(Labour Research , 2007a). As for the third, a directive on temporary agency
work has been under consideration by the European Union for a number of
years. However, the UK government continues to oppose it, insisting on the
need for flexibility in the labour market (see Labour Research , 2007b).
Progressing these initiatives requires government action, which itself
depends on the extent to which effective pressure can be exerted by trade unions
and other relevant groups. To be part of this process, the employee experience
that is revealed within our research has to be transmuted into a political voice:
personal problems have to be acknowledged as public concerns. Trade unions
would be the obvious organizational vehicle (see Mason et al., 2008, on trade
unions and working time; and Wood, 1995, on minimum wage regulation).
However, union organization is difficult within the industry for a number of
reasons, including small workplaces, high labour turnover, management hostil-
ity and workforce characteristics. It is also acknowledged that unions have long
failed to develop effective strategies for organizing workers in hotels (Dutton et
al., 2008). Recognizing these problems, London Citizens, an alliance of faith
and community groups, charities and trade unions, is spearheading a 'name and
shame' campaign, targeting industries in which systematic low pay exists. The
campaign has had a number of successes with employers in London in financial
services, hospitals and local government, and contractors for the 2012 Olympic
Games (Income Data Services, 2007a). With funding from US trade unions,
London Citizens' new target is the hotel industry. The campaign recognizes
three points: first, that the organization of hotel workers has not been a prior-
ity for UK unions; second, that in the US unionization does make a positive dif-
ference to hotel workers' pay and conditions; and, third, that ownership within
the industry is increasingly consolidated and internationalized - hence US
unions' willingness to support a UK campaign. Unionization of low paid hotel
workers cannot be immediate, however, the campaign recognizes, because of
the lack of UK union organizing infrastructure in the industry and