Members of Unite demonstrated outside the well known comedy venue on Wednesday evening, saying a leading activist had been demoted following a unionisation campaign.
By Ka Long Tung. Cover image: Glee Club customers are handed leaflets against union busting at the venue, by Ka Long Tung
Trade union activists gathered outside Glee Club, Cardiff Bay, on Wednesday 12 July after the bar manager was demoted following her involvement in union activity.
The protest came a day after Unite secured union recognition for workers at the venue, a decision awarded through the courts following an intense union campaign.
“She wouldn’t have been demoted if she weren’t in the union,” said Michaela Gilroy, Unite Region Officer, who has been involved in unionisation drive.
The member in question was demoted following an incident that happened when workers were in the process of seeking union recognition earlier this year.
The then bar manager, who was one of the active members of unionisation, provided a drink to an ex-worker at the venue. This was not uncommon for a bar manager to do, according to others who used to work at Glee Club.
Nonetheless, the company decided to demote the worker, meaning a 10% cut in her salary.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Roisin Bolger, a former kitchen manager at the venue, who participated at the beginning of the unionising effort before she left.
“The entire time that I’ve worked here it has never been an issue,” she said.
Siân, another ex-worker who’s name had been changed, shared a similar view.
“Obviously you shouldn’t give stuff away willy-nilly in any business,” she said. “But for every bar manager I had known, that was okay.”
“I think you should make it clear before you punish someone.”
Bolger thinks it was harsh treatment considering the service had given to the business.
“I’ve known her for years. I was working there when she was hired and trained,” she said. “She has never been anything but an upstanding employee, always on time, always does her job, smiles, beautiful.”
“This is a first offence from a model employee.”
Despite being demoted, the worker is still employed by the company.
“Obviously that’s a really difficult position to be in,” said Siân. “I think it would take somebody pretty big to be demoted and then continue working.”
As the demotion came when the workers were seeking union recognition, Unite accuses the company of a “blatant attempt to union-bust”.
Other accusations of union-busting include:
Taking disciplinary action against vocal union members; Holding union-busting meetings with staff; excluding vocal union members to keep staff in the dark about their rights and removing casual staff from the books in order to dilute union membership and avoid recognition.
In mid-January, workers at Glee Club Cardiff asked for voluntary recognition from the company owner, but this was refused.
In February, workers then tried to attain collective bargaining through the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) in an attempt to force the company to recognise Unite as the union to represent the workers.
Union recognition would mean that Unite would be able to negotiate with the employer about pay and other terms and conditions of employment.
In late March, the application was accepted by CAC. Recognition was then approved this month. Unite wrote: “This victory is significant in that it is one of the first agreements of its kind within the Welsh hospitality sector.”
Months of fighting for recognition show how opposed Glee Club are to the idea of workers being organised in a union.
“We want to work together with them (Glee Club),” said Gilroy. “But so far, they’ve been against having a union, which is why we have to go through CAC.”
The call for unionisation came as a series of health and safety issues appeared in the venue, according to ex-workers and the union.
Glee Club has denied these claims.
Speaking to voice.wales outside Glee Club Cardiff, Bolger, the former kitchen manager, said: “We didn’t have hot water for about nine months despite me asking again, and again,and again to have a fix. A lot of electrical issues in the kitchen.”
“I felt I didn’t have the tools to do the job that I needed to do,” she continued. “And I pleaded with them to sort it out and spend a little bit of money, but they just weren’t interested.”
On top of that, a more fundamental issue for workers is stable working hours and income.
“Nobody’s expecting a 40-hour week from a job like that – it’s so casual,” said Siân. “But staff are reporting having one shift a week, and then asking for one week off, and then not getting rota for the next four weeks.”
“If you could only get one or two shifts a month, but you know that and you’re guaranteed it, then you can work your life around it,” she said. “They just need to know when they’re guaranteed to have money.”
Bolger also said there was no constructive communication platform to improve the situation.
“We spoke about the shift instability pretty regularly, but I didn’t get anything back.”
“They tell you this is the nature of the industry. This is the business that you decided to work in.”
The company also told her to send workers home one to two hours into their shift. Bolger disagreed with this business-oriented mindset and said she often came up against a hostile management.
“If people don’t show up and if people don’t order food, that shouldn’t dictate whether or not my staff members can finish their shift or not,” she said.
“These people are on minimum wage. A lot of them were uni students, they didn’t have a lot of money.”
She hopes that the union recognition will bring about changes to the well being of workers at the venue.
Ruth Hydon, from Unite, said that Glee Club needed to take a more “mature” approach to dealing with the union.
“As a union, we’ve obviously got an interest in their business succeeding. We’ve got an interest in working with them to ensure our members have jobs, but that can’t come at the expense of our activists being targeted, being demoted, being disciplined because of their trade union activity.”
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