Legislations Effecting Hospitality Industry

Part B: Written Assignment/Task
As an experienced hospitality industry worker you have been asked to write an article for the careers section of a local newspaper

The topic for your article is “Working within the law – a guide for hospitality workers” • You will need to collect up to date information on at least 4 pieces of legislation to include in the article • In the article you will need to outline each piece of legislation and main features including recent changes or updates. Include detailed information about how these pieces of legislation can impact on the hospitality industry and its workers • The article needs to be approx 500 words

There are various legislations that protect employers, employees and consumers and effect the hospitality industry. This could be done through hygiene, environment, health & safety and workplace relations.

Hygiene is a major issue affecting the hospitality industry. Establishment don’t take hygiene very seriously, so legislations such as the food act 2003 (NSW) (as amended) was put in place to help fix the problem of hygiene in the hospitality industry. The food act 2003 (NSW) (as amended) basically is that, it is offence to sell contaminated or adulterated food, food premises and handlers must conform to minimum standards and the roles and responsibilities of the environment health officer include right to entry, power to inspect, right to collect food and beverage samples for testing, the right to close down a restaurant, the power to give warnings with set time limits for changes of improvements to be made and the power to fine an owner for breaches of the legislation. This has effected the establishments by decreasing their productivity as the industry needs to implement new procedures which is also decreasing profits

The environment is another key issue, not only for the hospitality industry, but for everyone in general. The environmental legislations in place are the smoke-free environmental act 2000 (NSW) and the smoke-free environmental regulation 2001 which is that no smoking is allowed in any closed areas within any enterprise in order to protect non- smokers particularly employees from passive smoking. Restaurants with outdoor and indoor areas will not be effected as much but restaurants with indoor areas only may lose some customers because there are no outdoor areas for them to sit down and have their coffees and smokes.

Health and safety in hospitality industries also has its legislation, the occupational health and safety act 2000 (NSW) and the occupational health and safety regulations 2001 (NSW). This is that the employers owe all employees a duty of care, that employees owe each other a duty of care, a set of goals for improving occupational health and safety Australia and a number of strategies to identify, assess, control and eliminate health and safety risks. This slows down productivity, decreasing profits as businesses need to get used to the new ways of business operations. Also training could be costly

There is workplace relations legislation called the workplace relations act 1996 (CWLTH) (as amended) which makes sure that employees a have an award stating the minimum legal rates of pay for jobs in different industries, both full time, part time and casual, the minimum number of annual leave days for full time employees, the minimum number of unpaid maternity/paternity/adoption leave days and the length of notification of termination of employment. They have made a need for more employees, while losing money for paying for the injured employees or the employees on leave, holidays, etc.