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Trade unionists warn Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce's recommendations fall seriously short in delivering safe, fair workplaces

RECOMMENDATIONS by the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce (STRT) would fall seriously short in delivering safe, fair workplaces and highlights the need for continued financial support, trade union campaigners warned today.

The group, formed in June to provide advice to the sector amid the Covid-19 crisis, has outlined proposals to support recovery from the pandemic. 

Its recommendations include a critical need for a continuation of support for workers, with the STRT suggesting that this must go further than what is offered by the current job support scheme. 

Announcing the report, Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing said that the recommendations showed “the importance of our people and communities and green tourism” to the sector.

But figures from the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said that Friday’s report will not deliver fairer workplaces in tourism and fails to address the need for demand creation among a population facing the economic uncertainty of extended social restrictions.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer raised concerns about leaving “implementation and expansion of the fair work agenda solely in the hands of industry.”

The STUC also welcomed the establishment of the Scottish Tourism Workers’ League, a group of workers formed to support each other through the crisis with help from the Better Than Zero campaign. 

She said: “As a sector, tourism has been notoriously slow in the adoption of fair work principles, and it’s therefore disappointing that the report lacks the ambition to link government support for the sector to fair work conditionality. 

“It is no use throwing money at owners and hoping that some of it will trickle down to workers and local communities, with no guarantees at all for fair work or sustainable investments.”

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