Why are pay and conditions bad?

I’ve been doing some reflection on the root causes of why there is inappropriately low or unsustainable pay and/or inappropriate work conditions in the outdoor industry.*

In summary the reasons are:

-          Some employers do not provide the minimum legal pay and conditions

-          Some employees accept lower than the legal minimum required pay and conditions

But I jest (sort of).

Please see the top 3 reasons below. 

(N.B. I know the idea of a ”root cause” is fraught in any arena, however, my interest in pursuing these is not to say that “this is all there is” but rather to argue that “these are the major levers” that need addressing.)

1.       The industry is poorly measured, poorly represented, poorly understood, undervalued, ill-defined, and also complex. (As a result, the work itself is poorly defined, communicating value is hard, it's confusing to know what the correct pay and conditions are, and there is poor regulation of the pay and conditions). And, intrinsically linked to this is that the industry undervalues itself (from educational institutions, to employers, peak bodies and employees) and therefore the industry/sector is undervalued or poorly understood by the community (including government).

2.       The nature of the work means it is challenging for workers to organise or even communicate collectively. [Workers are often young and/or vulnerable, there is high turnover of workers both within and out of the industry, the workforce is highly casualised (citation needed) and workers are geographically (spatially), temporally, and functionally fragmented and/or isolated.]

3.       Employees (altruistically, indifferently or enthusiastically) undermine the value of their work. (These three positions can be summarised by the following common arguments: “I care deeply about the work we do”, “I don’t understand” or “I love what I do”).

Oh, and my solutions to these problems?

-          More research, more data. And better communication of that research and data

-          A collective voice for employees (to speak for those who can’t), and better education in the space

-          Better regulation of employers (or better compliance – the difference is subtle)

*To be clear, inappropriately low or unsustainable pay and/or inappropriate work conditions is not true of all employers, however it remains enough of an issue that it was identified as a key issue at the OCA Summit in 2021, and was a “hot topic” at the NOEC (‘precursor’) event in the same year.