The Mistreatment of Polish Migrant Workers within the Hospitality Industry: how the modern day employer exploits their workforce

This essay demonstrates that the hospitality industry provides a simple industry to gain a role within, especially for migrant workers entering the UK. The industry helps them build their personal skills with members of the public alongside also their co-workers, equally helping them to improve English skills and build upon a role within the sector. A migrant worker seeks employment within the sector due to varied and increasingly available roles that are un-fulfilled due to the sector having staffing issues within Britain. Migrants also thrive for these roles due to them having other positive characteristics such as a higher wage than their home country, which is one of the main features they would like to work in the UK for. Many inhabitants within the UK do not want to take up employment within these roles due to them being very labour intensive and require them to be very flexible. Many hospitality employers now frequently become reliant on migrant workers to fulfil these roles due to the migrant wanting an easy role that requires little to no effort to get into the industry.

Many of these migrants are of Polish nationality, to which they have created a strong workforce here within the UK which many major employers within the UK rely on to fill their vacancies. These companies rely on recruitment agencies to help them gain new staff who can easily fill the roles. Polish migrants work in many of the places we frequent in everyday life such as pubs, bars, restaurants, even in hotels when we stay in them. All of these popular places fall within the Hospitality Sector which is one of the biggest sectors in Britain. The sector provides many roles which are commonly unfulfilled, and the sector also struggles with high turnover rates, staffing issues and criticism from the general public.

The industry has been continuously shrouded by many attributes which are generally mis conceded by people, which the media speculates upon and paints an unfair picture of. Many of these attributes are true, which disadvantages the sector and places it in a position where many residents of Britain do not want to enter, with heavy reliance again upon migrants from EU countries. The industry is heavily relied on around the world, which increases the pressure upon business to get things right, the first time for many of their customers leaving them with a good impression. With this mind, this increased pressure upon managerial teams can sometimes make the mistreatment of workers, especially migrant workers, seem an easy thing to get away with.

The mistreatment of migrant workers has been a subject that many scholars have researched for many years due to it providing a good platform, providing many insights from previous migrants who have worked within the industry. Since the industry is swathed with many attributes which form a negative factor among the sector, companies capitalise on these factors and use them as a way to mistreat migrant workers. These factors can stem from the attributes which make the Hospitality Industry such an undesirable industry to work for. The factors include low remuneration, unfavourable working conditions, part-time and seasonal timeframes and labour-intensive work which domestic markets do not see as positive attributes for a job. Employers can unfortunately get away with treating their migrant workforce like this due to the worker not being able to speak English at a level which is favourable, having a contract or even no contract which would be printed in the language of the country they would be working in and violating health and safety regulations which the migrant worker would not necessarily be updated with.

The industry is also dominated with migrant workers who are female, which face many constraints due to their gender. Gender segregation within the 21st century still is happening today, with many females who enter the hospitality industry at a disadvantage due to issues such as the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap has become increasingly positive within recent years with women being paid the same amount as their male counterparts. But with the mis conceptualisation that the industry is not a clear sector to gain a career in, women struggle to progress into managerial roles. Women only make up 26% of senior managerial roles within the industry which is a figure that has decreased to 20% (HR Magazine, 2020) demonstrating the struggle female workers face in the industry. Women are seemingly not able to progress due to executive management teams’ mis conceptualising them possibly disrupting their role due to marriage or caring for children.

With all the above seemingly negative, it is of vital importance that staff within managerial positions are trained to make sure the mistreatment of not just migrant workers, but all workers are treated the same so that fair treatment is ensured for all workers employed.



Reference List

HR Magazine (2018) Hospitality must do more to improve gender equality. London: HR Magazine. Available from https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/hospitality-must-do-more-to-improve-gender-equality [accessed 6 May 2020].

This discussion paper investigates the challenges faced by migrant workers in the hospitality industry. The reason why I chose this particular paper is that it is similar to my research paper and conference paper. This topic is interesting because it focuses on a specific nationality.

The author mentioned that management teams in the hospitality industry exploit Polish migrant workers by mistreating them and getting away with it because migrant workers do not know their employment rights and often have English language barriers. Despite the negative factors migrant workers experienced in the hospitality industry, it would add depth and meaningful information if the author explores the detrimental impacts these factors can have on the migrant’s mental well-being. Goethals (2019) states that hotel employees are often experiencing physical and mental-ill health due to working in a pressurised environment and intense labour. Hotel managers often overlooked the health and welfare of migrant workers.

This paper emphasises the roles in the hospitality sector are often gendered and are mainly dominated by female workers (Janta et al., 2011). This is interesting because not only that the industry favours migrant workers, but migrant women because as the author mentioned that women are less likely to progress to management roles due to the society’s ideology that women are caring and cleans at home, therefore this should be transferred to paid employment.

Lastly, the author mentioned that managers should treat all employees fairly, whether they are migrant workers or local workers. While this is important, however, the author could expand and explore the SEE formula (Scrutinise, Engage, Ensure) The SEE framework allows managers and HRM to identify exploitation practices within their organisation to ensure that they are working towards equal and ethical working practices (Anti-Slavery, 2020).

Overall, this paper presented a great understanding of the key factors and issues faced by Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality industry. The author demonstrates well-informed understanding of the mistreatment of migrant workers and how the industry is gendered.

References:

Anti-Slavery. (2020) Exploitation in UK hotels. Available from https://www.antislavery.org/what-we-do/past-projects/staff-wanted-initiative/ [accessed 27 April 2020].

Goethals, S. (2019) Exploring Migrant Employees’ ‘Rights-Talk’ in the British Hospitality Sector. Business and Human Rights Journal, 4(2) 287-315. Available from https://doi.org/10.1017/bhj.2019.4 [accessed 25 April 2020].

Janta, H., Ladkin, A., Brown, L. and Lugosi, P. (2011) Employment experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality sector. Tourism Management, 32(5) 1006-1019. Available from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.08.013 [accessed 30 April 2020].

In the article, the author points out the issue faced by the migrant workers in UK, it takes the migrant workers who come from Poland as an example to illustrate the mistreatment they have encountered in hospitality industry. In fact, in hospitality industry of UK, it relies on the migrant workers to large extent. The local people do not willing to engage in the work in these job positions because of the low salary level and inflexibility in work. It belongs to the labor intensive industry and needs the migrant workers to fill with the job vacancies.

In fact, what the author points out is really existence. What the migrant workers encounter include the low salary, the poor working environment, high work pressure and they face the seasonal unemployment because of the special characteristic of tourism industry, the peak season is in summer. In addition to the issue and challenge the migrant work face, I think the mistreatment to migrant workers can not separate from their personal factor such as their educational level is low, they can not find better opportunity in labor market and only be competent in the low-skilled job position (Allenby, 2007). If they are the knowledge workers with strong creativity, even they are the migrant workers; they can obtain the better work opportunity and higher salary level.

Also, from the analysis, the author points an unequal phenomenon in the hospitality industry which is gender discrimination. Most workers in providing service to guest are female workers. Due to the gender discrimination, they can obtain less promotional opportunity in this industry. Gender discrimination is widely existence in modern workplace. Not only in hospitality industry, in IT industry, it is same, more than 90% of staffs are male workers (Harnois, 2014). This is because of the social labor division between different genders. I think it is not related to the migrant workers status of women. Women need to give birth to children and take care of family. Most of them are hard to bear the same work pressure and work amount as men. For men, they are more willing to receive the overtime work and with strong ambitious to obtain the promotion opportunity (Sheppard, 2009). Therefore, gender discrimination is mainly caused by the different role of women with men in a society.

On the whole, it is an interesting article to depict the challenge that the migrant workers may face in hospitality industry. In the future, tourism is also an important industry to support the growth of national economy of UK. Therefore, I think it needs the government to address the challenge by effective measures such as to use legal means to protect the interest of migrant workers and provide training to them to increase their professional skills.

References:
Allenby, L. (2007). Migrant Workers: Rights and Wrongs. Fortnight, 451, pp. 11-13.

Harnois, C. E. (2014). Are Perceptions of Discrimination Unidimensional, Oppositional or Intersectional? Examining the Relationship among Perceived Racial-Ethnic-, Gender-, and Age-Based Discrimination. Sociological Perspectives, 57(4), pp. 470-487.

Sheppard, C. (2009). Systemic Discrimination and Gender Inequality: A Life Cycle Approach to Girls' and Women's Rights. University of Ottawa Press.