Putting human rights first: promoting union hotels and resorts

Tourism workers must be able to exercise their rights to join and form trade unions and to negotiate, through collective bargaining, their terms and conditions of employment. These are internationally recognized human rights.

Unions in tourism destinations have launched initiatives to inform the public about hotels that respect these rights, including:

• www.fairhotels.com.hr – an initiative by the Union of Tourism and Catering of Croatia (STUH), provides an online list of hotels in Croatia where collective agreements have been negotiated and worker rights are respected. The union is seeking to promote a quality of tourism in which worker rights are embedded and to involve a maximum number of hotels. The site is available in English and Croatian;

• okforhold.dk  – is a website created by the Fagligt Fælles Forbund (3F) in Denmark to promote the approximately 2,450 hotels and restaurants that have a collective agreement, which means that employees have secured rights such as a minimum wage, holiday allowance, pensions etc. The website is in Danish but offers translation options. Application for smartphone is also available;

• www.fairhotels.ie – this website was developed by SIPTU (Ireland). It profiles all hotels in Ireland covered by a collective agreement. You can search the site for conference facilities, hotel name or by city. SIPTU has worked extensively to gain support for the fair hotels site and demonstrate to hoteliers that they can influence consumer choice. This has included getting agreement from unions and other organizations that they will only use those hotels listed for their meetings and conferences.

• www.fairhotel.org – this is the union hotel guide of Unite Here! for North America. You can search the site by hotel name or city. It provides a list of hotels to patronize, and to boycott. Application for smartphones is also available.

• www.fellesforbundet.no/hotell – Fellesforbundet (Norway) website provides a search engine to search all hotels covered by collective agreement, which means that employees have secured rights such as a minimum wage, holiday allowance, pensions etc. Currently, 427 hotels are listed. The website is in Norwegian only;

• fairhotels.si campaign in Slovenia is an initiative of SGIT, which represents hotel workers. Fair Hotels are defined as hotels that treat their staff fairly which are covered by collective agreements. The objective is to support and promote quality employment in the hotel industry in Slovenia by encouraging consumers to choose Fair Hotels for leisure, meetings and conferences;

• www.schystavillkor.se – an initiative of the HRF in Sweden, this site allows you to search for all hotels, restaurants and other leisure facilities (such as Bingo Halls) which are part of the national collective agreement. You can search the site by business name, type or location. Application for smartphones is also available