Precarious Work Undermines Decent Work: Travail of Women Workers in Unionized Hotels

The Decent Work Agenda. This vulnerable work arrangement is also affecting the Philippines, particularly, the women workers and the unions’ active in the hotel industry. More specifically, this study tries to determine the driving forces behind precarious work and its impact on the union as an organization, women workers and their health and safety in the workplace. As an exploratory study, a survey was conducted with 109 respondents from eleven unionized hotels in Metro Manila, Bohol, and Cebu provinces in the Philippines. Results showed that the main driver of hotels resorting to precarious work practices lies in the intention to lower expenses or costs for salaries and benefits to increase profit. Precarious work has significantly weakened the union as an organization since their membership continues to decline and their source of fund is reduced. Precarious employment also prevents women becoming regular employees, union members, and denies them decent pay. The health and safety of precarious women workers are at risk since they have multiple jobs in multiple outlets in the hotel and they are assigned irregular or very limited hours of work and/or long work shifts/work days or work weeks. Therefore, precarious work creates insecurity and leads to increase in inequality and poverty which undermines the principles of Decent Work. One strategic course of action to combat the prevalent practice of precarious work is to amend or craft new laws that will give more protection to job security in the workplace.