Housewives struggle as US hotels abandon daily room cleaning Business

HONOLULU – After guests left a room on the corner of the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort on Waikiki Beach, Ms. Luz Espejo picked up enough trash, some scattered under the beds, to fill seven large garbage bags.

He removed the sheets from the beds, wiped away the accumulated dust from the furniture, and wiped the layers of dirt from the toilet and tub. He even got on his knees and hands to pick up confetti from the carpet that a large void could not swallow.

Like many other hotels in the United States, the Hilton Hawaiian Village has abolished the daily cleaning service, making what was once one of the most difficult jobs in the hospitality industry even more exhausting.

Industry experts say the move away from daily cleaning, which gained momentum during the pandemic, is driven by customer preferences. But others say it has more to do with the benefits and has allowed hotels to reduce the number of housewives at a time when many of the mostly immigrant women who take these jobs are still recovering from work lost during coronavirus closures.

Many housewives who continue to work say their hours have been cut and they are being asked to do a lot more work during that time.

“It’s a big change for us,” said Espejo, a 60-year-old native of the Philippines who has cleaned rooms at the world’s largest Hilton for 18 years, less than a year since he was fired during the pandemic. “We’re very busy at work now. We can’t finish cleaning our rooms.”

Prior to the pandemic, there were 670 housewives working in the Espejo complex. More than two years later, 150 of them have not been hired again or are on guard duty, spending every day from 5:30 to 10 a.m. waiting for a phone call telling them there is work to be done. The number not hired or on duty was 300 just a few weeks ago.

“This is more money in the pockets of homeowners by putting a greater workload on front-line workers and eliminating jobs,” said D. Taylor, president of Unit Here, a union that represents workers at the hotel.

Although some hotels began to experiment with less frequent cleaning in the name of sustainability, it spread much further in the early days of the pandemic, when to promote social distancing and other security protocols, many hotels went on to offer the room cleaning only if requested by a guest, and sometimes. only after remaining a certain number of days. Guests were asked to leave their rubbish outside their door and call the front desk to ask for clean towels.

But while security restrictions are fading and demand is rising as the country enters the peak travel season, many hotels are maintaining their new cleaning policies.

A spokesman for the Hilton Hawaiian Village said no Hilton representative was available for an interview on these policies at any Hilton property. Representatives from several major hotel chains, including Marriott and Caesars Entertainment, either refused to be interviewed or did not respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press.

Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, a business group whose members include hotel brands, owners and management companies, said it was the demands of the guests, not the benefits of the hotel, those who guided the decisions on the services of mistress pandemic.

“A lot of guests, to this day, don’t want people to come into their room during their stay,” he said. “Forcing something from a guest they don’t want is the antithesis of what it means to work in the hospitality industry.”

The pandemic has changed the standard for most hotel guests who want to clean up daily, he said, adding that it is not yet clear whether this will lead to permanent change.

Cleaning policies vary by hotel type, Rogers said, and luxury hotels tend to offer daily maid service unless guests stop picking up.

Ben McLeod of Bend, Oregon, and his family did not request a cleaning service during a four-night stay at the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii in March.

“My wife and I never really understood why there would be a daily cleaning … when that’s not the case at home and it’s a waste,” he said.

He said he expects his children to be fixed.

“I’m type A, so I get out of bed and make my bed, so I don’t need anyone else to make my bed,” he said.

Unionized hotel workers are trying to get the message out that refusing daily room cleaning harms housewives and threatens jobs.

Martha Bonilla, who has been working at the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel & Casino in New Jersey for 10 years, said she wants guests to ask for daily cleaning, noting that it makes her job less difficult. Although New Jersey hotels are required by law to provide daily cleaning, some guests still refuse.

“When I get back from work now, all I want to do is go to bed,” said Bonilla, a Dominican Republic native and single mother of a 6-year-old daughter. “I’m physically exhausted.”

It’s not just party guests like the ones who threw confetti in Hawaii who leave dirty rooms behind, the mistresses say. Even with regular use, rooms that will not be cleaned for days become much more difficult to restore in the bright, spotless rooms that guests expect when they check in.

Elvia Angulo, a 17-year-old Oakland Marriott City Center mistress, is the main supporter of her family.

During the first year of the pandemic, he worked one or two days a month. It has recovered 40 hours a week, but with rooms no longer being cleaned daily, the number of people working each shift has been halved, from 25 to 12.

“Thank God I’m old here, so now I have my five days back, and my salary is the same,” said Angulo, 54, who is from Mexico. “But the work is really harder now. If you don’t clean a room for five days, you have five days of broom in the bathroom. It’s a broom on slag.”

Many housewives still do not receive enough hours to qualify for benefits.

Sonia Guevara, who has worked at a Seattle Hilton for seven years, used to enjoy the benefits of her job. But since she returned to work after being fired for 18 months, she has not qualified for health insurance.

“At first I was thinking about getting a new job, but I look forward to it,” he said. “I want to see if my schedule changes at the hotel.”

He said there are few other work options that are conducive to having two children at school.

Politicians are now picking up on the issue, including Hawaii State Representative Sonny Ganaden, who represents Kalihi, a neighborhood in Honolulu where many hotel workers live.

“Almost every time I talk to people at their doorstep, I meet someone who works in a hotel and then we talk about how he is overworked and what’s going on and the working conditions,” he said. “You have a lot of first- and second-generation immigrants who are left dry by these non-daily room cleaning requirements.”

Ganaden is among lawmakers who passed a resolution calling on hotels in Hawaii to “immediately re-hire or remove employees who were fired or laid off” because of the pandemic.

If that’s not enough, Ganaden said it would be open to more forceful action as some other places have taken.

Washington, D.C. City Council in April passed emergency legislation that required hotels in the district to provide room service on a daily basis, unless guests stopped withdrawing.

Amal Hligue, an immigrant from Morocco, hopes the rules mean more hours at the Washington Hilton where she has been working for 22 years. She needs them so that her husband can get medical insurance.

“I hope you have this month because I worked last month,” he said.

At 57, he doesn’t want to find a job. “I’m not young, you know,” he said. “I have to stay.”