A Report in The Sydney Morning Herald says that an accreditation system to ensure Australia’s tourism operators uphold high standards would not work without drastic reform of working conditions in the industry, a union says.
Fairfax newspapers said the federal government was keen to establish the accreditation scheme to lift standards and weed out bodgy operators, and it would discuss the proposal with state and territory governments in March.
Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union assistant national secretary Troy Burton welcomed the scheme but said it would only work if the “collapse” of the tourism labour market was also addressed.
“(The tourism and hospitality industry) has the highest proportion of low-wage jobs and injury rates which are second only and practically equivalent to the construction industry,” he said.
“Tourism has Australia’s highest levels of staff turnover and chronic skills and labour shortages.”
Better pay rates, conditions and occupational health and safety standards, as well as talks with all industry players, will be needed if the industry is to improve, Mr Burton said.
“It’s time the tourism industry took a long, hard look at itself,” he said.
“It’s suffering from a very poor image amongst potential job seekers, and the real problem is that this poor image is based on a poor reality.”
“The hospitality industry has some of the worst scars of the Howard government’s wilful neglect of training and skills development and ideologically driven destruction of working conditions.”
A Report by The Mole from AAP
