‘SM’, kitchen worker
Hospitality work is arguably a rite of passage for young workers. Despite making up only 10% of the workforce as a whole, 16 to 24-year-olds make up just under half of the industry.
So, when you’re 16, and you get your first job in hospitality, what lies in wait for you?
Certainly not decent wages. Your age won’t save you from the same physically and mentally demanding tasks that all your co-workers do, but it will earn you £2 less an hour – and that’s if your boss decides that you’re worth that measly £6.40. Many businesses will have you work ‘trial shifts’ to see if you’re even worth the time. In my first job I ended up working four shifts for free, simply because I didn’t know any better.
A consistent schedule? Rotas can be published at extremely short notice. One of my friends – who at 19 still works for £7.50 an hour – receives their rota for the week on the Monday of that week. With the prevalence of zero-hour contracts, it is truly a gamble. Thirty hours or four? It depends on the business’s needs. When I worked at McDonald’s for a year, a company that pays its workers fortnightly, almost every two weeks I received a rota with four shifts one week and none on the other.
But what of workplace safety? Surely you can expect a duty of care? Well, if you’re working a summer job between terms at college, you get the pleasure of tropical temperatures up to the mid-40s, something that is legal as there’s no maximum working temperature for kitchen workers. If you’re lucky, you may get a rocket lolly as a ‘reasonable adjustment’!
Skeleton crews – implemented to maximise profit for the higher-ups – increase stress on workers, leading to long-term health effects, and also later closing times. In a country that is steadily killing off public transport, especially late at night, it leaves you stranded, choosing between a taxi costing multiple hours of wages and walking alone in the dark.
The Socialist Party demands:
- A minimum wage of at least £15 an hour with no exemptions
- Workers’ rights from day one
- Scrap zero-hour contracts; end fire and rehire
- Trade union action for workplace safety
- If Starmer doesn’t implement the ‘New Deal for Workers’ in full in his first 100 days, unions must meet to plan action
