Manage Your Time Better?

A survey conducted by Unite back in April found that two thirds of London chefs believe that the long and punishing hours are impacting their health.

I can verify this as a chef with twenty years’ experience working long and anti-social hours.

I have recently developed arthritis in my thumb joints largely brought about by the repetitive strain of manual work.

I have developed sleep apnoea as a result of working late nights and early mornings (catching sleep in my afternoon break wherever possible. Sometimes in staff rooms).

Last year I had a serious car accident after working a series of punishing shifts and my judgement was clearly sluggish because of exhaustion.

Probably the worst incident I witnessed was my head chef collapsing at the pass one day. He had put in a series of long days without any breaks or respite. He had a stroke and was only in his early forties.

When he was off sick, I questioned the management of the hotel on why he felt obligated to work so much, they responded

 ‘It’s his own fault. He should manage his time better’.

Organisations cannot wash their hands of any responsibility in these matters. They have a duty of care to their staff. Salaried staff are often told to manage their own hours and then given a workload that simply is not achievable within their contracted hours. The TUC estimates that £33.6 billion of free overtime was worked in 2016. I’m sure a substantial share of it comes from our industry.

That is why I am not ‘Opted out’ of the European 48 working time directive and I urge all chefs to ‘opt back in to 48’, join Unite chefs combine - let's really manage our time better and start dragging our industry out of the dark ages!