Editor’s Note: The interview has been edited for clarity.
Since late June, workers at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel and the Refuge (the hotel’s bar and restaurant) in Manchester City Centre have been taking industrial action for a set of basic demands as members of Unite North West Service Industries. This strike represents the first hotel-based industrial action in living memory within the North West of England, and is an expansion of the hospitality unionisation efforts as seen recently in Glasgow. In this interview, I spoke to a workplace representative from the unionising efforts at the Kimpton and Refuge about lessons for the wider movement and the experience of organising in hospitality.
What does working at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel and the Refuge look like on the shop floor and who’s involved in the dispute?
A: I’ve been working at the Kimpton now since around December. I started during the Christmas period, so it was just non-stop staff parties. We’ve got the theatre next door, which brings in so many guests. We had several conferences back to back where there would be five bartenders and one bar back on the bar, with 500 customers all hitting you all at once with no preparation, no warning from management, and no help at all. You just come in, with the expectation to just serve [drinks] nonstop, whilst short-staffed and without the equipment to serve said customers. So you’d be running around trying to find glassware to serve them – people are getting angry at you and shouting at you. You know, usual hospitality things, but it’s not great. Then we kind of decided, you know what, should we start to do something about this? We all talked about joining a union pretty much as soon as I started. I don’t know if it was that much of an idea before I started working there, but I know that around January/February, we started having meetings quite often. When these first started there were 20 of us meeting from the Refuge.1 We’d all just meet in The Salisbury2 and kind of started discussing how we wanted the work environment to improve pretty much.
How did the dispute at the Kimpton and the Refuge emerge, and what demands are being put forward by the organised workers?
A: So back in March, around 10 of us walked into HR and demanded that they listen to us. We basically just outlined what we had issues with and how we believed that management could fix those issues. One of our main demands is obviously union recognition because once we get recognised as the union, it’s easier to then win the other demands. Another was obviously to fully staff shifts because during the Christmas period, we just didn’t have enough staff to cover the busy periods whatsoever. Full sick pay because I knew a couple of our members of staff had to pretty much fight to get sick pay that they were entitled to. A further demand was full-time contracts – we would get like 16 hours or 32 hours and those are the two options. However, some people would get rota’d for 16 hours; but they would normally work around 45 hours. Obviously, at the drop of a hat the company can just be like “we’re putting you back down to 16 hours and you can’t complain because that’s your contract”. I think some people might be on 24 hours as well, but, you know, the people who want full-time can be on the part-time contract. Other demands included paid taxis home after late shifts and a better uniform. My pair of [work] trousers were ripped for a good month or so before I eventually begged a manager. I was like “please, can I have trousers that don’t have a huge hole in them?” I’m working at the Kimpton. I would like trousers that don’t look really scruffy, please. They basically ignored everything we said and their response was “we don’t accept collective grievances. Come to us individually if you have any issues. Bye.”
Every issue we have is an issue that affects us collectively. So it would take up so much of HR’s time if we all walked in individually and repeatedly asked them to stop changing our rotas. We’d have to say the same thing over and over again. I’d understand if some of the issues only affected, like, one or two people. For example, sick pay – a couple of people were only suffering with that and the contracts as well, but it’s something that could, for example, I could get sick anytime soon. In HR or sales, who work 9-5, Monday to Friday, it’s really easy for them to claim sick pay because they’re scheduled that many days in a row. But this was a matter of collective security, as opposed to, this issue might only affect one or two people now, because it could affect any of us at any time. Yeah, exactly that. We wanted to make sure that no one had to deal with the issues that other people have dealt with. We want to stop it and prevent it before it can become an issue, just making things easier for the workers.
What is the kind of social composition of the workforce at the Kimpton, and has this produced any particular challenges or strengths?
A: In typical hospitality fashion, most of the staff, especially in the restaurant, and kind of half of the bar, are still in university. So it has half made it easier, and half made it more difficult. Most of the time, people in university tend to be more left-wing; they tend to be more aware of social issues going on in the world, so it’s been easier in that sense to get them to unionise. But on the other side of things, people in university who have hospitality work as their job, they don’t see hospitality as a career path. So they’re like, “Well, why am I putting so much effort into unionising when this is just a bit of extra money for me? This isn’t what I want to go into full time. This is just something I do on a weekend, maybe”. So it’s made it harder in that respect. Everyone’s around 20 years old, but we have staff as young as 18 years old. Most of the staff are between 18-25, which has been an advantage in unionising because young people tend to be a bit more left-wing. In terms of gender, the restaurant definitely has more female staff and the bar has more of an equal split. I have found it’s been a bit easier to unionise the restaurant because of that – I think everyone’s been a bit more calm. There’s like less tension and aggressiveness in the restaurant in a way, which has made it a bit easier, I think, to have those conversations with people.
Beyond lip service, how can activists from the wider left support the workers in an actual meaningful way?
A: Obviously, try not to go to The Refuge; try not to spend money there. I feel like it’s so overpriced for what it is. £7.45 for a Guinness, that’s more expensive than the airport. There are better bars out there that seem to treat their workers a bit better, as far as I’m aware. Don’t go to The Refuge, and spread the word as much as you can. Follow the United Kimpton Workers on Instagram; that’s where we post about our picket lines. Attend a picket line if you can; they are quite fun! We listen to a lot of music, have a couple of speeches, chanting, and it’s also just a good place to speak to our people. There are normally different events being advertised there as well, which you can also attend – we’ve got our Crowdfunder on Instagram as well. Obviously, I don’t expect people to donate money because in times like this, everyone is really, really, really broke. But if you can, even a fiver is a lot. The money that you’d spend paying £7.45 for a Guinness at The Refuge, send it to us instead.
What does organising in hospitality look like on the ground when compared to kind of more established unionised industries?
A: It started with a group of us going to The Salisbury, having a pint and kind of bitching about work and being like, “oh, I can’t believe so-and-so did this, so-and-so did that”. And then through that bitching, it was like, “oh, you know, this is a problem that’s affected everyone. Like, oh, you’ve had plans for this day, and they’ve changed the rota again on a Sunday, and now you can’t attend said plans. The same thing happened to me last week. Okay, this is a common theme. Oh, your trousers are also ripped. Okay, this is another common theme. Oh, you also couldn’t get sick pay, right? Me neither”. So it started off with your typical going out for a staffy3 after work or whatever, discussing issues as everyone does, and then realising that this is a problem that affects all of us, maybe we can do something about it. A million group chats, way too many group chats to keep track of. It was a constant meeting. And then it was like discussing in the workplace as well for people who didn’t attend meetings. It was kind of like, “oh, I know we’ve just had a bad shift. Have you ever heard of a union? Would you like to attend a meeting? Would you like to be added to a group chat of sorts?” Like as a union rep, I feel like that was kind of my forte was speaking to people in the workplace. I kind of like talking to people anyway. I was going into work asking anyone with poor experiences , “Oh, guys, that was an awful day – do you want to maybe join our union and try and do something about it?” I’ve not experienced what it is like to unionise a place in a different industry because I’ve only worked in hospitality, but I can imagine ours is a bit more informal. I think that works a bit better, though, because, like I said before, we’re all quite young people and you don’t kind of want to scare people off by stating laws and making it all serious. I feel like it’s been a bit easier kind of starting off with that informal “let’s go for a pint and discuss what’s affecting us at work” and then going into “this is a union. This is what they can do for us. Join Unite. And then we can go into HR and we can actually try and change things. It feels much more informal in the workplace; it’s more of a group of people that just come together and discuss things that they have issues with. Outside the workplace we’ve got all the things that go on behind the scenes, like lots of admin, calling people, answering emails, millions of group chats, attending events and posting on Instagram and all of that. But actually in the workplace, it is just a lot of speaking to people.
Why is organising at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel significant for the wider labour movement?
A: I think it’s significant because it’s one of the first in known history of hospitality strikes, which is huge, huge news. I’ve worked in hospitality for six years now and so many people just kind of accept suffering as a part of being in the industry. When it gets to a point where they can’t cope with the job anymore they just quit and move to a different bar and don’t actually do anything about it. I’ve said in a couple of speeches before, my mom’s a teacher, my dad used to work for the railway – they were seen as companies that could go on strike and could fight for their rights and could unionize and all of this, but bartenders are just seen as a low skilled, low effort job. That’s what people think. I don’t believe that at all. But it’s just seen as something you do when you’re at uni, you earn a bit of cash, who cares? But, it is a hard job. I believe that what we’re doing, unionising at the Kimpton, is so important because it shows people that it doesn’t matter what job you do, you still deserve rights at the end of the day. You’re still a human being, you’re still a worker, you deserve rights, and why shouldn’t you fight for them?
How has the union acted regarding the strike? What support has the strike received from your trade union branch, and how has the national union interacted with it?
A: As I said before, times are tough right now with money. So the union as a branch has ensured that no one has been impacted financially. I sit at home on Excel for hours after each strike day and calculate how much money each person would have missed if they didn’t attend the day because of the strike. All of that money has been covered. We’ve had £70 per day from Unite, and then because of the crowdfunder and top ups from other branches, no one’s lost out on any money whatsoever. I think that’s obviously really important because I don’t think people would be as likely to strike if they’d completely lost out on all the money – we’ve been out for around a month now that’s a couple hundreds of pounds that people would be lost out on which just isn’t feasible. They’ve been so good at spreading the word with contacts that we wouldn’t normally on a day-to-day basis have contact with. We’ve made it pretty much worldwide. We’ve had people from all across the world send us messages of solidarity, which comes through Unite, putting us in contact with people. Just a great amount of opportunities to attend events, do interviews like this, where we’ve been able to spread the word, gain more traction. They’ve been pretty great, in all honesty. I can’t fault them. I don’t think we’d be able to achieve it without them.
What lessons can young workers looking to organise for better conditions learn from the work done at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel? Are there any mistakes that were made that if you could restart the whole thing again, you just wouldn’t do?
A: We put our collective grievance in March and we had such willpower back then, and everyone had motivation, but there was a time period in between the collective grievance and then some of the union reps getting fired. Then people started to get a bit scared, and then we didn’t really know what our next move was. And we were stuck in this limbo of “what do we do next? Can we even do anything? Are more people going to get fired?” During this time, people stopped attending meetings as much. The group chat died down, and then by the time we put in the ballot for striking, we’d lost a couple of members because people just didn’t really care anymore or were scared. So I think if we were to do it again, I think we should have just gone full steam ahead, immediately after the collective grievance was ignored, because we still would have had that huge majority in the bar and restaurant of people who were willing to strike. I think because it took a good couple of months to get the ballot out, which wasn’t entirely our fault – there were issues with that being sent out that weren’t in our control at all, but I think if we’d have shown the company that “look we are serious” and did it immediately after the collective grievance – “look if you’re not going to engage in conversation with us, we will go on strike”. Instead there was that couple of months where nothing was really happening and it was just a bit of a lull, a limbo from the union. I’d definitely go full steam ahead if I was to do it again, and if anyone else is planning to unionise, I would say, while you’ve got the willpower and the motivation, just go for it immediately.4 I know it’s really daunting and it’s really scary. When we were being pulled aside by HR one by one, coming into work was just awful. It was awful coming in and thinking, “oh, I’m going to get pulled aside and I might not have my job anymore. And then what do I even do that I can’t afford to live?” And it’s all because I’ve just tried to do something good. But at the end of the day you should fight for what’s right. Ignore the fear. I’d also say as well, I wouldn’t be so affected by negative comments as well. We’ve had such an online presence recently, and there will always be people out there that disagree with what you’re doing, but I just think that at the end of the day, what you’re doing is right – you’re trying to help people out and these people will literally say anything they can to hurt someone’s feelings. So I’d recommend people don’t read Instagram comments. They are awful. Try and mute them if possible or just ignore them because it’s normally someone living in someone’s basement. And, yeah, I’d just say try and accept that it is a hard process. It’s not going to be easy. But maintain that willpower and that motivation. Keep it up. Be positive. Ignore the haters, as cringy as that sounds. And just accept that “I’m actually doing something for the good of the workers, I’m changing history” and you know, this might actually work. This might actually be a win for us.
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