Promoting Collective Bargaining: Wages Councils and the Hotel Industry
| Date | 01 May 1991 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459110001476 |
| Published date | 01 May 1991 |
| Pages | 3-11 |
| Author | Rosemary Lucas |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
PROMOTING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: WAGES COUNCILS
AND
THE HOTEL INDUSTRY
3
Promoting
Collective
Bargaining:
Wages Councils
and
the Hotel Industry
Rosemary Lucas
A
nalyses the extent off collective
bargaining in the hotel industry since
the mid-1940s and considers what the
future might hold.
Employee Relations. Vol. 13
No.
5. 1991. pp. 3-11
© MCB University Press, 0142-5455
Introduction
It is generally acknowledged, not least in the current
political arena, that minimum
wage
legislation, of whatever
type,
is a multifaceted, complex issue that can be
discussed from a variety of perspectives. The following
discussion concentrates on public policy in relation to the
role of collective bargaining in the hotel industry; this
wages council sector is a known area of underdeveloped
collective bargaining, where collective bargaining may yet
gain strength. In developing this central theme, labour
market issues and other matters bearing on minimum
wage legislation such as trade union organisation,
membership and activity; personnel policies and practice;
labour productivity and efficiency; the Social Charter and
a Statutory National Minimum Wage (SNMW) are
considered, but not in detail. These and related issues
such as trends in earnings, labour cost control and
flexibility[1] will be discussed in a future article.
The hotel industry (covered by the Licensed Residential
Establishment and Licensed Restaurant Wages Council
(LRE)) provides some interesting characteristics for a
discussion on the promotion and development of voluntary
collective bargaining. The LRE, which covers an estimated
17
per cent
of
workers
in
the total service sector protected
by wages councils (379,000 of 2.3 million)[2], has been
the subject of
two
important public inquiries on collective
bargaining, and a number of other studies contribute
valuable information to an understanding of
the
industry's
characteristics. Voluntary collective bargaining
arrangements have never existed on
a
significant scale nor
do they appear to have developed to any extent, even
though until recently there has been a favourable public
policy framework. Has a change in public policy made any
difference and what are the future prospects for the
development of voluntary collective bargaining
arrangements in the hotel industry in
a
changing society?
This article sets out to discuss these issues.
The opening part of the article outlines the collective
bargaining role of wages councils, assesses the effect of
a favourable public policy framework on the development
of voluntary collective bargaining in the hotel industry, and
identifies other reasons which help explain why voluntary
collective bargaining arrangements failed to develop to any
real extent between the mid-1940s and the late
1970s.
The
second part explains how the public policy framework was
weakened in the 1980s, highlights additional factors which
may have thwarted the further development of voluntary
collective bargaining, and brings into question the validity
of
the
collective bargaining "model" in the hotel industry.
The third part of the article presents recent evidence on
methods of wage regulation in hotels from an empirical
study of hotels in North West England and some major
national hotel
groups.
The
final
part takes stock of these
developments and poses a number of questions about the
current and future role of the wages council and the
institution of collective bargaining in the hotel industry.
The Supportive Public Policy Years (1943-79)
Wages councils are a statutorily created form of collective
bargaining which
have
underpinned the pay of
many
hotel
and catering workers since the Catering Wages Act 1943
introduced minimum wages to "the only major industry
where statutory wage regulation is necessary for the
protection of most workers' wages both because there
is an absence of voluntary negotiations and because wages
and conditions would be worse without the Councils"
[3,
p.
75]. Although initially intended to eliminate low pay,
wages councils (originally named trade boards) had
become institutionalised as part of the state's industrial
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