Towards a New Political Economy of Global Tourism Revisited - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 315

global tourism industries. Whilst the degree of integration of different regions
into capitalist markets and the scope of transnational corporate penetration
is nonetheless differentiated and uneven, the ever-growing complexity of glo-
balised tourism commodity chains is clearly demonstrated by the increasingly
opaque and complex layers of outsourcing that make up particular firms.
Most international airlines routinely use external contractors to provide rou-
tine maintenance, reservations and in-flight catering services (Ioannides &
Debbage, 1998; Whitelegg, 2003). Similarly, many leading airlines have sought
to shift ancillary services to cheaper 'off-shore' locations, as in the case of
British Airways who took the lead in contracting out their ticketing services
to India (Blyton et al. , 1998). Labour is one of the few variable costs in this
sector and has, therefore, received the brunt of the cost-cutting exercises
(Blyton et al. , 1998). Attempts to reduce costs in this manner led to the sack-
ing of nearly 300 LSG Lufthansa Services/SKYCHEF workers in November
1998, prompting a three-month-long strike (International Transport Worker's
Federation, 1999). 11 Since the early 1980s, particularly in Europe and North
America, successive waves of deregulation and privatisation increased the
competitive pressures on airlines. This paved the way for the emergence of
low-cost carriers, which in turn placed further downward pressure on wages
and led to the progressive erosion of job security and working conditions, in
what nevertheless continues to be a relatively unionised workforce compared
to other areas of the tourism and hospitality industries.
Notwithstanding the argument that tourism and hospitality employment
has always been characterised by flexible working arrangements (see Bagguley,
1990), the downward pressure on wages and deterioration of working condi-
tions has increased as a result of economic restructuring and rationalisation
that have become the hallmark of neoliberal economic policy and globalisa-
tion. Such trends are particularly marked in the labour-intensive tourism and
hospitality sectors in the advanced capitalist countries and, increasingly, else-
where, where work at the lower-end of the labour market is often character-
ised by low wages, long and antisocial hours, a lack of job security, a high
incidence of part-time and seasonal work, health and safety concerns, and in
some cases, outright abuse and exploitation (ILO, 2010; Zampoukos &
Ioannides, 2010). The UK hospitality sector, in which only 10% of workers
belonged to a trade union in 1996, was at the forefront of the Conservative
government's attempt to re-engineer the balance of power in favour of capital
through ever greater flexibilisation of labour (Thomas, 1996). Furthermore,
several studies point to an immediate decline in wages across the UK hotel
sector since the abolition of wage councils in 1993 (Radiven & Lucas, 1997).
Although low rates of pay continue to exist, this needs to be set against, for
example, the introduction of the minimum wage in 1997, as well as other
forces, including the increased 'professionalisation' of some aspects of tourism
and hospitality work, which may serve to mitigate certain aspects of inequal-
ity and further differentiate the labour market (Church & Frost, 2004).