Housekeepers Protest Cost of Luxury
Easy Reader -November 1, 2007
by Danny Brown
Rosa Balam sewed her miscarriage into a quilt. She was working as a housekeeper at the Westin Hotel off Century and Aviation in 2005 when she fell after trying to lift an 80-pound bag of linen and started to bleed. She said that even though management knew she was pregnant they still required her to lift heavy objects.
"When hotel guests see their rooms nice and clean, they have no idea that the housekeeper who did the work was probably working in pain," Balam said.
This past Thursday a dozen housekeepers from the Manhattan Beach Marriott participated in a 500-person march to bring awareness to the high-risk working conditions for hotel housekeepers in the Los Angeles area. The majority of the housekeepers marching had grievances such as Balam's and each added a patch to a 50-yard-long quilt to represent their injuries caused by overexertion in the workplace.
The marchers, organized by Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, were hotel workers, Unite Here Local 11 Union members, high school students, college students, clergy, and interested citizens. All gathered outside the LAX Hilton at 5 p.m. Protest signs read "Dead Tired," referencing the Mexican holiday Dia los Muertes, and banners condemned different Los Angeles hotels for poor working conditions.
"We want people staying at hotels to know how difficult our job is," said Soledad Rodriguez, who has been working at the Manhattan Beach Marriott location for 20 years. "The Marriott is probably one of the best of all the hotels and even here it's not good. We have to clean 16 rooms a day. To fit it in we can't take our 15-minute break, and we have to work faster than is safe, finishing a room in about 30 minutes. Working too fast is how you get hurt."
In 2005 the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board forced some of the country's largest hotel chains such as Hilton, Starwood, Hyatt, Marriott, and Intercontinental to provide data on worker injuries between the years 1999 and 2005. The numbers revealed that the average annual injury rate for hotel housekeepers was 86 percent greater than the injury rate experience by non-housekeepers. Additionally, it also showed that between 1999 and 2005 there was a 50 percent increase in the amount of work place risk.
According to the Unite Here Local 11 Union, this disparity in injuries stems from an excessive "room quota" system that requires housekeepers to clean a certain number of rooms each day. Racing through tasks such as lifting mattresses, folding bed sheets, cleaning slippery tubs, and removing shower curtains, a worker increases the risk of injury.
A poll conducted by Unite Here Union of 622 hotel housekeepers from Boston, Los Angeles, and Toronto showed that 91 percent of room attendants experience workplace pain and two-thirds of those attendants must take medication for the pain regularly.
Union spokesman Miguel Jauregui said that unionized hotels such as the Manhattan Marriot have a 16-room quota and that non-unionized hotels often have quotas upwards of 20 rooms.
He said a reasonable amount of rooms to expect a worker to clean in a day is 12.
While most hotels have introduced new luxury room amenities such as heavier mattresses and linens, duvets, extra pillows, and exercise equipment, they have not cut down on the number of rooms they expect housekeepers to clean.
"The hotel industry has been benefiting from the hard work of housekeepers for many years," said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who spoke to the crowds from the back of a truck during the march. "Most of the workers are women whose low earnings don't allow them to provide adequately for their families. Not only are they being cheated from a living wage, but they're also at risk of injury every time they go to work."
Police blocked off a street lane while protesters made a pilgrimage from the LAX Hilton five blocks to the Westin, carrying the large quilt of grievances over their heads.
"The quilt is not going to get any smaller," one housekeeper said. "Maybe it will eventually get to the point where people can't ignore it."
Company spokesmen from the Marriott Host Hotel, which owns the Westin and Manhattan Beach Marriott, did not return calls asking for comment about the event. ER
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For over 20 years, Isabel “Segunda” Brentner has worked at the LAX Hilton, keeping her focus on her family and her job. “My priorities [were] to help my family,” says Brentner, who, along with raising her own children, cared for both her father and grandmother when they were ill. 
Enedina Alvarez, a 54-year-old single parent, says she must be both mother and father to her teenage children. Yet, with two jobs, she has barely enough money to house, feed and clothe them—and precious little time to spend with them. Although she receives health insurance through her job, she cannot afford to insure her children. Alvarez says, “I pray to God that my kids do not get sick because I cannot pay the medical bills.” 
Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants.
