Violation and lack of awareness of employment rights in the United Kingdom's hotel industry: Isolation, fragmentation and barriers to labour enforcement

Abstract

The article examines the extent of labour violation in the UK hotel industry and identifies the challenges and difficulties that workers face to defend their employment rights. Drawing on interview material and documents, the article identifies the factors that weaken workers' capacities to bring forward complaints and discusses the organisational, institutional and individual factors making silence dominant in the sector. This multifaceted analysis demonstrates different layers of vulnerability that create a very unfavourable environment for the promotion of employment rights in a context of heightened levels of fear. We contribute to the existing studies by demonstrating that for precarious and insecure workers in particular, the UK model of individual employment rights has ‘no substance’. Our findings highlight that it jeopardises not only the enforcement of rights but also workers' ability to acquire comprehensive knowledge and awareness of them.