Unite and Rugby World Cup

The HoS reports:

McCarten said hospitality industry workers should be paid a minimum of $15 an hour and hotel workers get a cut of room-rate hikes.

An employer who sets a permanent wage rate on the basis of a one off event, won’t be in business for long.

Rates will be higher during the World Cup. And unions are quite free to ask for a profit share. In fact I like profit shares. But they normally go both ways.

If there is a month with little demand for rooms, and hence room rates are discounted 50%, would Unite be willing to accept lower wage rates for that month?

Risk and reward are linked. If you want extra reward, you need to accept some risk also.

The workers earned low wages and would be expected to work long hours and extra days during the tournament.

Now there is one key thing missing from that sentence. The statement that workers will get paid extra money for every extra hour and extra day. Hotels are not going to (or able to) make people work longer hours for the same pay. So workers will be getting paid more during the RWC – by working more.

“They’re talking about room rates of up to 10 times what they’re charging now, so there will be a lot of money around.”

There’s talk, and there’s actual bookings,

And Tourism Auckland chief executive Graeme Osborne said no one would be making “silly money” from the tournament.

The industry had emerged from a “tough” few years, and the average room rate was about $140 a night, lower than it was five years ago.

As I said,if you want more money during the peaks, will you also take less money during the troughs?