While the inhabitants of the free world were more than thrilled to see Barack Obama elected President of the United States, here at The First Star we don’t believe everything that comes from the US is necessarily the biggest, the best or the brightest – especially when it comes to the treatment of workers.
The Marriot Hotel Brisbane, a US-based company, seems determined to bring American style treatment of workers to Australia. For instance, with just a few weeks to go before new rules came into effect on 1 July, workers at the Brisbane Marriott hotel were rushed to sign onto a WorkChoices contract. This means none of the workers will be able to use any of the laws actually introduced to make their lives a little easier.
The First Star believes the company also used bullying tactics in the weeks leading up to the ballot. During this time all housekeepers were given first and second warnings about standards of rooms – work performance. Once the ballot was completed house keeping were suddenly commended – the rooms were all perfect.
We’ve also received a number of reports that many of the staff members have had difficulty in understanding their proposed agreement. With English being the second language for a number of workers, management provided no language support to bridge the gap in understanding their agreement. What makes matters worse is the anti-union stance of the management team. Housekeeping told the First Star they’re afraid to talk to the union as they are scared that management will find out and punish them for it.
The First Star has also been told that management at Brisbane’s Marriott hotel have a problem with the concept of overtime. The hotel’s staff are made to start 15 minutes before their actual start time to ensure they are ready to start “right on time”. Quite often they will work past their finish times and not get paid for that extra work.
Is it greenwash or an authentic commitment to preserve the environment for future generations? No one really knows and that’s a problem for this hotel and every other luxury hotel in Australia. This lack of a consistent, authoritative and transparent environmental rating system really means that no one can be sure if they’re being snowed by marketing or actually making a difference.
The parent company, Marriott International has lots of different ‘green’ programs, includingcertified green golf courses, an offset program that allows their guests to pay for rainforest preservation in the Amazon (promoted under the phrase “green your hotel stay for $1 a day” and also extends to ‘green meetings’ options), they have a range of ‘green’ purchasing schemes (including my favourite, ‘annual purchases of 47 million BIC Ecolutions™ pens designed for Marriott, made from pre-consumer recycled plastic’) Finally they have participated in Earth Hour.
