It is important that we understand what is at stake with hospitality worker organising. Hospitality covers a range of different labour processes. At the core, hospitality work is not that different to the industrial work that it is increasingly displacing. Taking the beans out of the can is not so different to putting them in. Indeed, serving up commodities after they have been produced and distributed involves many additional demands.

Rarely do we just want drink or food slopped out into any old container. Instead, workers do not just serve drinks, but they produce an environment in which consumers are willing to pay more. This kind of work, broadly categorised as hospitality, has grown alongside the wider trends of deindustrialisation in Britain. Much of the workforce is younger, often finding this work alongside studying or training for other kinds of work. There is a risk of understanding hospitality as something that people only do for a while, and therefore negative conditions as some sort of “rite of passage.” Even if workers do not identify strongly with the work, many are spending longer periods of time in hospitality, particularly following the 2008 financial crisis.