Life at the sharp end

The economic downturn has had many disastrous effects – very few sectors have emerged unscathed. Whilst the occasional tale of flourishing entrepreneurship amongst fresh graduates or the newly redundant has made the press, most people are living a starker reality. Graduates are fully aware that the competition for limited jobs is intense; those who have jobs are eager to keep them.

Most have accepted the situation and reacted accordingly. Such is the British way: resilience in the face of hardship. As for employers, they are undoubtedly faced with tough decisions. Simply surviving the recession is key, and profits are no longer a given. In order to ride out this storm, it is survival of the fittest.

But what of other not so Darwinian measures? It is often held that the true character of a person is best evidenced in how they deal with adversity, not success. The same is true of employers. Thankfully we in Scotland benefit from a modern and robust level of protection through rights which are now integral to employment law.

Yet it would seem this has been unable to halt the decline of acceptable working practices. The last 12 months alone have witnessed an astonishing 56% increase in employment tribunal claims. It would be naive to think that even this statistic represents the whole picture, as there must be many who have not accessed this resource.

In an age when we are all supposedly hyper-aware of our rights, why would employees put up with poor treatment? It seems that during a recession, conditions are ripe for standards to fall. With few alternatives, it is staggering how compliant employees become; awful suddenly looks better than nothing.

Take the example of a poorly paid industry, hospitality. When there is less disposable income, entertainment is an obvious area where households can make cutbacks. In response, employers may be tempted to buffer themselves from downturning profits by sailing ever closer to moral and legal boundaries. Or simply ignore the boundaries entirely.

An employer may drastically reduce staff hours. A 30 hour week suddenly becomes eight, without warning. Or an employer may use half the required levels of staff to operate and expect staff to pick up the slack. Or create some competition amongst the staff by displaying a collection of applications for their positions, to remind them that their shoes may easily be filled. Or simply refuse to give staff breaks, irrespective of how many hours are worked, to avoid paying others to cover. Or ignore accidents in the workplace and fail to record them, in a bid to avoid statutory liability. Or demand staff tips to pay for “extras” such as candles for tables or ink cartridges to print menus. Only a desperate business on the verge of closure would surely consider all of this?

Now consider all of the above being carried out not by a struggling independent publican but a business with over 200 venues and a turnover more than £40 million.

I became a disdainful witness to these, and may other, Machiavellian dealings not through any journalistic endeavour, rather through the first-hand reality of recently finishing law school and finding few graduate positions. The solution seemed obvious: continue working in what had previously been my part time bar job.

I could never have predicted the disparity between what I had been taught to be legally correct and just, and that which was so blatantly ignored in practice. In a display of routine and uncompromising arrogance, this employer acted in the unshaken belief that the law simply did not apply to them.

I can foresee the critics’ argument here: a newly qualified lawyer, eager to cut her teeth, too sensitive to perceived wrongdoings, or naive to how things work in the real world. But I certainly have not gone looking for suspect behaviour upon which to pounce, in any of my four years of employment in this industry. For one thing, that would defeat the purpose of what a part time job ought to be in my mind, i.e. hassle-free. More to the point, I am not so arrogant as to challenge such a large company just for kicks.

So what is the solution when some employers clearly cannot be trusted to treat all employees with the level of dignity and respect they deserve? The law can only do so much if the provisions are already in place and are sufficiently clear. It is the next step that seems to be an issue – applying it.

If employment rights are to mean anything in practice, the situation requires a determined insider(s) to shine a light on unscrupulous practices, using the full arsenal of legal provisions. They must be prepared to see an action through to the highest level, and create a cause célèbre in the public arena. The recent tribunal increases are a step in the right direction, but it will take a larger collective voice really to change this industry.