Major challenges

In 1999, the International Labour Organization (ILO) presented the idea of decent work as an aspiration towards which efforts were required. Decent work was defined as “productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity, in which rights are protected and people have adequate pay and social protection”.

This concept of “decent work” focuses on the ILO’s four strategic objectives: employ- ment, social protection, workers’ rights, and social dialogue. This entails a labour model in which sufficient employment exists that enables work with sufficient pay, security and healthy working conditions and also entails a system of guaranteed social protection. At the same time, fundamental labour rights should be respected, such as the freedom of association and the elimination of all forms of labour discrimination, forced labour and child labour (>> Goal 16 Violence against Children).

The aspirations associated with decent work are far from the conditions experienced by the vast majority of workers engaged in tourist-related work which violate this idea:

• The low wages earned by many workers in the tourist industry are insufficient to be able to maintain a dignified standard of living. In many cases, workers live at the poverty threshold (>> Goal 1).
• Employment is increasingly unstable, with companies having discretionary power to decide when and in what manner female workers’ contracts are renewed or when they are rehired. Women are forced to accept impositions with regard to their working hours, work days or holidays, which further result in more difficulty to balance work with their daily lives (>> Goal 5).
• Changes in working hours and uncertainty in the days in which one works or when rest days or vacations can be taken makes it increasingly difficult to balance work with their personal lives.
• The deterioration of workers’ physical and psychological health is accentuated by the
• increase in the work load, instability of contracts and new forms of outsourcing. There is a causal relation between job instability and the deterioration of workers’ health (>> Goal 3).
• The conditions of hiring and the objective difficulty that the majority face to reach retirement age mark the erosion of social protection conditions. In this manner, guaranteed social protection measures are reduced.
• Freedom of association is seriously affected in many locations, restricting the right to participation that is key to the idea of decent work, one of the Core Labour Standards and a human right.

Low wages and poor labour conditions affect the vast majority of workers in the tourist industry – and even more so those at the lower end of the job ladder, particularly women and immigrants who are particularly vulnerable. It is for this reason that some of these collectives, such as hotel housekeeping staff, have launched large international campaigns to denounce their situation.