Letter from the British Entertainment
& Discotheque Association Ltd
Provision of safe transport home
The Trades Union Congress was quite right to point
out the need for nightclubs to ensure safe transport home for
nightclub employees, particularly for women, at times when there
will be little or no public transport. This is not a new issue
for the late night entertainment industry. A typical nightclub
will trade until 2.00 am or 3.00 am three or four nights a week,
requiring employees to travel home after local transport has ended.
The industry has responded to this by developing standard practices
to ensure employees can get home safely. For example, some venues
will run taxi pools or offer company minibuses:
"Each night we trade, the duty manager will
ask the staff who needs to travel where after the club closes
for the evening. He will then either arrange taxis or run them
home himself in the club's minibus."
John Hayes, Garbo's, Scunthorpe
All the major late night entertainment companies
have developed policies to ensure this matter is handled responsibly.
A sample policy used by one of the industry's leading corporates
has been included with this letter (see Appendix A).
Incorporation of the provision of safe transport
home into the Code of Conduct
The BEDA 'Sunday Working' Code of Conduct was developed
in recognition that individual employees should be able to exercise
a choice over whether or not they work on Sundays. BEDA is committed
to providing protection to such individuals. Baker Mackenzie,
the employment solicitors employed by BEDA to prepare the Code
have informed us that in their opinion, the very specific nature
of the Code means it would be inappropriate to add a clause on
a separate matter. Particularly the provision of late transport
which is an issue for nightclubs every night the trade (see Appendix
B).
It is BEDA's view therefore that we cannot use the
Code for this matter. We hope the Committee will recognise that
this is not an issue that our industry takes lightly. In fact
it is an issue our members have dealt with responsibly for a number
of years. Our aim is to ensure that the policies and practices
currently employed on, for example, a Saturday are carried over
to a Sunday (see Appendix A).
Policing of the Code of Conduct
BEDA members have already voted to accept the Code
of Conduct. Should the Deregulation Order become law, this will
be ratified at our next Annual General Meeting. All BEDA members
will receive a copy of the Code of Conduct which they will be
expected to discuss with their staff. This should give the Code
around 80% coverage of our industry. In addition, BEDA will write
to all members making them aware of the need to comply with the
Code and include repeated references to the Code in all mailshots
(around one per month). Non-compliance with the Code will lead
to expulsion from the Association.
BEDA will also undertake to publicise the existence
of the Code to the industry as a whole through our official magazine,
NIGHT, which has a circulation of 12,000. Should any employees
of non-BEDA member clubs have any problems with regard to Sunday
Working BEDA will make the provisions of the Code available to
them and cover any expense incurred.
BEDA would like to reassure the committee that employee
coercion should not be an issue. A BEDA survey (analysed by the
EAG) of 2,257 nightclub industry employees suggested that 69%
of respondees would be willing to work on Sunday. This evidence
and the fact that the late night industry has traditionally operated
flexible and voluntary staffing arrangements for weekend working
confirms our belief that there will be a more than adequate supply
of employees willing to work on a Sunday.
28 February 2000
| 
