Staff at the city's Marriot Hotel have finally been added to the government's coronavirus retention scheme. 

Unite the union had been campaigning strongly for Marriott International to "do the right thing" and put its 1500 casual employees onto the scheme.

The chain earlier stated it was "yet to determine their position", which would have ultimately left the workers without clarity or a wage. 

Unite industrial organiser, Bryan Simpson said: “On 8 April, Marriott Hotels sent a letter to over 1000 casual workers stating that they were "yet to determine their position" on whether they could be furloughed citing "significant cash flow issues" as their justification.

“This is, despite government guidelines, released on 26 March stating that they absolutely can be furloughed and paid at least 80 per cent of average annual earnings.

“As the world's biggest and richest hotel group, it was inconceivably unfair for Marriott to discriminate between permanent and casual staff in this way and then to claim that it didn't have the money to furlough some of their poorest and most precarious workers, particularly when 80 per cent would be covered by the taxpayer. 

“Our members agreed and they banded together to organise through their trade union, many for the first time launching a collective campaign to demand 100 per cent wages including conference calls, online actions and a joint letter to the president of Marriott Europe. 

“Marriott may claim that they were always going to furlough their casual workers but it was only after our members collectively demanded furloughment that they capitulated having made them wait a month for wages. 

“While this is a massive victory for our members at Marriott, our campaign for justice doesn't stop here.

"We now call upon the Marriott to top-up the remaining 20 per cent of wages, including Tronc (tips) and ensure full sick pay for those self-isolating."

A spokeswoman from Marriott International said: “We are able to confirm that we have made the decision to place our casual workers in the UK into the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. 

"This will be effective from the date of hotel closure for all casuals that have an active contract. This date will vary depending on when each hotel formally closed.

"This is a move that Marriott has been working on for a number of weeks. In our communication with our casual workers the week of the 6th April, we stated that Marriott was yet to determine its position regarding furloughing over 1500 casual workers, as we needed to evaluate all of the data for each hotel that uses casual staff.

"Since then, we have been working hard with our ownership groups across our 60 managed hotels in the UK to evaluate available funds on a hotel-by-hotel basis, at a time when our UK properties are closed and therefore generating no revenue at all.

"To date, approximately 500 of our casual workers in the UK have already been asked for agreement to be furloughed under this scheme and the remaining casual workers will receive letters in the coming days."

 

As a company we are committed to doing all that we can to support our people and our communities during these difficult times and we are very pleased to have been able to make this decision for our casual workers.”