TRADE UNION DESK: The cost of flexibility
John O’Farrell of the ICTU examines an employment tribunal case involving the Westville Hotel and the wider debate over flexible working, low pay, and trade union representation.
If you use Google seeking information about the Westville Hotel in Enniskillen, the search engine’s AI prompt will offer you some FAQs, beginning with ‘what is the Westville Hotel known for?’
In addition to its preferred blurb as ‘a stylish four-star boutique hotel’ and ‘an upscale, intimate base for exploring the Fermanagh Lakeland’, the query gained an additional detail in early August 2026: ‘Enniskillen hotel worker wins £20,500 discrimination case’.
The BBC reported that: “Anna Owens had agreed a fixed three-day working week at the Westville Hotel in Enniskillen that enabled her to balance her work with childcare. But she said she felt ‘betrayed and deflated’ when the arrangements she had verbally agreed before starting work were changed by a new manager.”
An industrial tribunal found that this working pattern formed part of her contract of employment. In a statement, the hotel said it was “genuinely sorry that Owens’ employment with us ended as it did”.
But not all that sorry. In an additional statement, the hotel added it was “considering it carefully with our legal advisers, including whether to appeal, so it would not be appropriate to comment on its detail”.
If this case goes to appeal, that means that the costs of the case to both the hotel and the taxpayer via the Equality Commission and the Industrial Tribunal will get an additional hike. Based on conversations with those experienced with the Tribunal system, the bill so far will be not less than £30,000, and that is contingent upon ECNI using in-house counsel. On top of that, Owens was awarded £20,488.79 for loss of income and injury to feelings.
The Westville Hotel is owned by Nicky Cassidy, who is also vice-chair of the NI Hotels Federation and, says Google’s AI “actively engages with regional trade bodies like Hospitality Ulster to support local tourism and staff development”.
It is also noteworthy that both of those trade bodies (or lobbyists if you prefer), are openly opposed to the Good Jobs Bill, and in particular its clauses on zero-hours contracts and flexible working arrangements. Indeed.
Also, Hospitality Ulster is concerned about a perceived “increase to administrative and financial burden”, obviously not including legal fees and bad publicity, which brings us to HU’s other objection, trade union access, which “may result in increased operational uncertainty without necessarily improving employment relationships”.
It could be argued that the case of Anna Owens versus Westville Hospitality Limited demonstrates the opposite. Trade union representatives are not interested in disrupting good employment relations but building them. Reps want the business they are working in to be successful and want to maintain their jobs and those of their coworkers.
A good and trained trade union rep can make themselves familiar with the employment laws we have and those we seek to improve, and can warn managers when they are in breach of the law. If there is conflict, a trade union rep can act as an honest broker between a manager and a member of staff. As the song goes, it ‘don’t cost very much’.
Hospitality Ulster ‘s high-profile lobbyist Colin Neill encourages members to follow the advice from HU’s ‘official legal partner’ Mills Selig and to “proactively review their workforce models and invest in structured employment practices are more likely to mitigate risks and benefit from a more engaged and stable workforce”.
Colin Neill also recently said about the Good Jobs Bill that “we have casual labour, yes, but employees often prefer that. They value that flexibility.” Which is fine and dandy if that flexibility bends both ways, for the benefit of workers as well as managers.
The context of this is the regular finding from the Government’s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings that: “Hospitality has the highest rates of low pay of any industry in Northern Ireland, with nearly three in four (72 per cent) jobs paid below the real living wage, up 11.7 per cent points from 2024 and higher than the UK average of 53 per cent.”
Perhaps the money saved by having a trade union rep giving free legal advice to managers before making an expensive legal error could be offset by a competitive pay increase to hotel receptionists, cooks and housekeepers. Just a thought.
