Why the hospitality industry should agree to be more hospitable if it wants more overseas workers

There is a case to be made for allowing more overseas workers into the UK to help address labour shortages afflicting the industry. But first it must commit to ensure they aren’t exploited, writes James Moore

The hospitality industry makes customers feel good. The same isn’t always true for its workers (AP)

A sign of the sorry state Britain has gotten itself into is the fact that when I’m considering what to write this column on, I often find myself asking: so, what’s gone and blown up today?

It’s us, the hospitality industry said ahead of this latest missive. But it’s not so much that they’ve blown up. The industry is instead seizing up as a result of a chronic lack of staff, which could deliver a knockout blow to businesses which barely got through the pandemic.

These are the sentiments expressed in a letter to the Financial Times from more than 60 of the industry’s leading lights. In it, they appeal to the government to add multiple roles to its skills shortage list, which would make it significantly easier for them to import workers from abroad.

Brexit is never far away from stories like this one and here would appear to be yet another example of the government’s destructive nationalism cutting off the UK’s nose to spite its face.

This is an important industry, a point the signatories, including hotelier Sir Rocco Forte, Nick Jones, of Soho House fame, and Sinclair Beecham, the founder of Pret a Manager, are keen to stress.

Per their figures, it adds £133.5bn to GDP, employs over 3.2 million people, and makes its customers feel good. The last of those shouldn’t be underestimated in the wake of the pandemic’s privations.

But does it make its workers feel good? If it did, would so many of them have departed when the government slammed the Brexit door shut, trapping the nation’s fingers in the process?

The letter argues that hospitality is “not a low-pay sector”. Chefs, sommeliers, floor managers, are all “skilled jobs” paying “skilled wages”.

Well, up to a point. The signatories’ case is somewhat undermined by some of the industry’s practices. Take what’s been happening with respect to tipping, which I covered at the beginning of the week. Waiting staff at some outlets have taken to the media to express fears that a chunk of the money they receive could be diverted to the kitchen staff as a backdoor means of handing them a pay rise (they typically get a cut but already enjoy higher wages).

That sort of behaviour, which the government is planning to correct with legislation on fair tipping, doesn’t help the industry to make its case.

Unions would also contradict the assertion that the hospitality industry is not a low-pay sector. Parts of it also make too much use of zero hours contracts. Workers aren’t always treated well when they’re at work either; unions tell me that they regularly hear complaints about that.

There is, then, clearly work to be done. There is also work to be done when it comes to protecting employees from exploitation. Workers who come to Britain on restrictive visas have few rights, which makes them highly vulnerable. It can be extremely hard for them to change jobs if they find themselves in a bad situation, for example.

When all is said and done, it is likely true, as the writers assert, that there isn’t sufficient capacity in the UK labour market to fulfil the industry’s needs, even if it heeds the government’s oft-repeated calls to invest in and train home-produced staff.

But if the industry is to be given the green light to import the workers it needs, then there should also be a quid pro quo, an agreement not to exploit overseas workers in the way other sectors that have similar issues with labour shortages have sometimes been doing.

If the writers were to add an addendum to their letter, along the lines of “we would be happy to sign up to a code of practice covering the treatment of overseas workers” or “we would be happy to seek accreditation from the Living Wage Campaign to ensure fair pay” or “we are willing to work with unions to address any workplace issues”, it would be a lot easier to write in support of their plea.

If the hospitality industry wants foreign workers, it needs to treat them hospitably.