The Hyatt hotels in Boston have elminated 100 of their housekeeping staff, replacing them with employees from a company called Hospitality Staffing Solutions.
Not surprisingly, it is both the laid off workers and the workers from the outsourcing company who lose the most in this situation. From the Boston Globe today :
“It’s unbelievable,’’ said Lucine Williams, 41, who has worked at the Hyatt Regency Boston for nearly 22 years and was making $15.32 an hour plus health, dental, and 401(k) benefits when she lost her job. “I don’t know how they can treat people like that.’’
The new housekeeping staff will make $8 an hour with no benefits.
Equally disturbing as this news is a comment in the article from Paul Sacco, president of the Massachusetts Lodging Association. He claims that the staffing change will save the hotel money and guests won't be able to see an change,
“If you stayed at the Hyatt last night and you bumped into the housekeeper, would you notice a difference?’"
His comment gets at the heart of this issue: these housekeepers are seen as invisible. They can be fired and replaced by lower paid workers and no one will notice.
Please let the Hyatt know that you do notice by not patronizing their hotels.
Full article from the Boston Globe.
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"Not surprisingly, it is both the laid off workers and the workers from the outsourcing company who lose the most in this situation."
How are the workers from the outsourcing company losing anything?
Going from not working to working for low wages (which they're willing to work for) doesn't strike me as a loss.
"His comment gets at the heart of this issue: these housekeepers are seen as invisible. They can be fired and replaced by lower paid workers and no one will notice."
I'm all for creating boycotts against companies who do things you don't like, but it amazes me when people are surprised by mindsets like this. Housekeepers are like umpires- people tend to only notice they're around when they screw up.
If Hyatt is taking a risk, it's in the fact that they're replacing experience with inexperience. I don't know enough about the job to say whether that's a smart risk or a dumb one. But if it's going to help their business, it has to be expected they'll do it, regardless of the cost to individual lives.
Personal opinion: If we find this treatment of employees bothersome, it's more beneficial to put our energies into activities that result in more widespread education so more people are able to perform jobs from which they are not so easily dismissed rather than trumpeting the immorality of firing people for lower-wage employees and trying to create a boycott that, in this case, is very unlikely to happen.
I'm not sure this could've been avoided, and I doubt a boycott will be particularly effective. In reality, a hotel cannot stay in business by overpaying their staff -- which will result in overcharging customers, losing business, and either letting staff go, or closing up shop (which isn't good for anyone).
The laid-off staffmember they interviewed was making $31K annually (assuming 40-hr. workweeks), plus significant benefits (probably at or above $40K including benefits). I'm no expert -- but that sounds pretty far above the going-rate for workers in this particular industry. That's more than a lot of schoolteachers make.
If the replacement staff is willing to work for half of what she made -- the hotel can get twice (or almost twice, assuming the experienced worker is faster than average) the productivity for their dollar.
Unfortunately, the business logic works. It sucks, but it is simply the nature of unskilled jobs that the positions are relatively easily filled by inexpensive workers.
I agree with Spiffy on this one. Education is the key. A boycott wouldn't work.
kbz
While I certainly agree with you and Spiffy McBang that education is a good thing, how exactly is education going to help people who are employed as housekeeping staff? Until we invent robots to clean hotel rooms for us someone is going to be doing that job.
Programs that increase the feasibility of education for adults and/or lower-income people would help. Unfortunately, for the most part, it's not going to do much for the great majority of people in this situation. Many of them just aren't going to want to go back to school, and it's hard to blame them. Others may want to but have other complications besides what charity or government programs can fix. And, as you note, someone will be doing the work.
The focus on education is more to try and help as many people as possible who are able to do more than clean hotel rooms find a better route through life. If you can't do much for the present, help the future, essentially. As for the people actually holding these jobs... what can you do? As KBZ said, a half-price worker is more financially efficient. Even if they only do two-thirds as good a job, the company saves money. And the lesson the company learns is to roll over housekeeping staff more often to keep wages lower and not have to deal with $15/hr. employees in those positions.
This is the nature of scrub work. The ones who are stuck in it are going to be affected by this. All we can do is try and keep smart, talented people from rotting away in those jobs.
Education can help individuals that want to transcend jobs such as this one.
However, it cannot change the nature of the job itself. The standard pay-rate for any particular job is generally connected to how much money or business it brings in, and how difficult workers are to replace.
The nature of housekeeping staff is that they do not bring in business. They are an expense associated with running a hotel -- but people do not patronize a hotel because of how experienced or well-paid their cleaning staff is. In fact, if your each member of your cleaning staff is making $31K annually, you'll likely LOSE business because your room prices will be inflated. Few people would pay more for a room based on the experience of the housekeeper (as they would for, say, a more experienced attorney, mechanic, etc.), and most may not notice the difference in the quality of the work based on experience.
It is also the nature of the job that housekeeping staff are easily replaced. There is little-to-no training required, and almost everyone over the age of 16 is qualified.
Hotel housekeeping simply will never be a high-paying, or even well-paying, job. So, the best (and only) tactic for improving the earning potential of hotel cleaning staff is to teach them how to become something else.
Yes, there will always be people hotel housekeepers. But, ideally, it will be a temporary situation while preparations are made for a job that has a bit more potential -- not a lifelong career. Unfortunately, for those who pursue it as a lifelong job, they can likely expect low pay and/or easy replacement throughout.
kbz